A/N: Somehow this chapter was never uploaded. Thanks to ether-fanfic for drawing my attention to it.

Chapter 11: New Friend

"Exclamation: Master! It is a pleasure to see you alive. How may I be of assistance?"

Marina groaned and rolled over. Her cheek encountered ice cold metal which startled her the rest of the way conscious. She jolted upright, scrambling away from the figure standing over her until her back smacked into a bulkhead. The impact rattled her head, already woozy, and nearly knocked her out again. She abandoned any attempt to flee and just held her head in her hands, trying to hold her swimming vision still.

It was nearly a full minute before she felt more or less with it enough to look up. There was a huge droid watching her with deep red photosensors. The droid was actually made of durasteel, which would make it incredibly durable, perfect for the outer rim. Why they'd need one on an asteroid mining station she didn't know or care.

"Ugh. Hello droid. What is this pl- wait. What did you call me?"

"Recitation: Master."

Marina blinked. "How did I become your master?"

"Clarification: Master, I am a survivor of the Harbinger. I passed into your control upon the deaths of all other crew members. Core protocol passes temporary control to passengers until contact with company representatives is established."

Marina leaned back against the bulkhead gingerly and closed her eyes, trying to concentrate. So it was confirmed then. No other survivors. Only . . . there had been one other. That creepy old woman. "What caused the death of all crewmembers?"

The droid stood unmoving, speaking in its programmed cheery voice that was a little unnerving considering the subject matter. "Response: This unit is not equipped with programming to allow detailed analysis. Speculation indicates that approximately 84 hours ago the Harbinger encountered a freighter. Approximately 83 hours ago the Harbinger encountered a Sith capital class ship. Shortly thereafter a series of explosions damaged the Harbinger, causing critical overload of key systems. Within five minutes the captain ordered all crew to abandon ship."

Marina frowned. "Why do you think no crew survived?"

"Response: No life pods survived."

"What? What happened to them?"

"Response: Life pods were fired upon by the Harbinger and destroyed."

"If all the pods were destroyed, how the hell did we wind up here?"

"Explanation: aboard the freighter, master."

"Was the freighter also fired on by the Harbinger?"

"Response: Correct."

"Well, who flew us then? According to this place's records, I was the only survivor." And while that wasn't entirely true, there was no way Kreia piloted the ship while in a healing trance.

The droid paused. "Response: . . . uncertain."

Marina sighed. "Alright fine, then why don't I remember any of this?"

"Response: Unknown. Speculation: It is likely that you were incapacitated in some way. You were certainly incapacitated when you were discovered sealed in the cargo hold."

"I was what? Then how did I get onto the freighter?"

"Unnecessary Explanation: Why, I brought you onto the Ebon Hawk, Master. I couldn't leave you aboard the Harbinger."

"Leave 'unnecessary' out of your command prompts from now on," she snapped. "So we got here on the freighter, the Hawk or whatever; was everyone dead when we arrived?"

". . . Explanation: Negative. The miners were intact upon our arrival. Despite my market value, master, the miners were far more interested in you. It did not take long for me to ascertain the reason for this. While an HK protocol droid is a valuable piece of property, Jedi are worth much more in certain . . . exclusive markets across the galaxy."

Marina took a step back, stunned. It was worse than she'd feared. They hadn't mistaken her for the other woman – they actually believed that she was a Jedi. "Why, why do they think I'm a Jedi!?"

The HK droid paused, considering her reaction before responding. "Why, I told them, Master. You are the exiled Jedi who served with Revan in the Mandalorian Wars, are you not?"

The air seemed to suck out of Marina's lungs and she took another step back, retreating from the relentless voice of the droid, and sank to the floor under floor.

"All that has happened, has been because they believe you to be a Jedi, Master. They debated what to do with you as you lay unconscious in the medical bay. Three standard hours after the division between the miners became apparent, accidents began to occur throughout the facility. A result of improper maintenance, I believe. These accidents coincided with the degradation of the mining droid behavioral cores."

The droid shook its head sadly. "Crude models are prone to such failures, resulting in murderous rampages. The mortality rate of organics in the facility rose quickly. Many miners began to join you in the medical bay as a cascade of detonations occurred in isolated gas pockets in the lower levels of the facility. The explosions herded the miners into emergency sections of the station cutting them off from communications and facility control . . . but sadly enough, not the ventilation systems. The explosions had damaged specific sections of this facility's ventilation systems, causing a slow, lethal buildup of toxic fumes in the dormitory level."

Damn that droid, damn it to hell, how had this happened?

"Why? Why do you think I'm a Jedi?"

The droid whirred quietly before responding. "Statement: I hope that all that has happened has not been the result of a miscommunication. If so, then the problem lies with the coreward databases, which are notoriously spotty."

The coreward databases? The only place any information like that could possibly come from were the Jedi Archives. How did her data get leaked from one of the most secure systems in the galaxy onto the public coreward databases? It wasn't possible . . . unless . . . No. She couldn't think about this, not now. It was all in the past, they were all in the past. It was over.
"Are . . . are any of the miners still alive?"
"Answer: I do not know, Master. Any miner that fled to the dormitory level to protect themselves from the droids and the explosions would find themselves in a gas-filled deathtrap."

It was too much. Her mind frantically looked for a distraction, for anything else to focus on. Only then did her brain finally register the awful smell of rot. ". . . what's . . . what's that smell?"

"Response: Unknown, Master. However, I would speculation that it is the remains of Maintenance Officer."

She shook her head in frustration but cut the movement short at the way her brain seemed to slosh around with the movement. Another concussion? Great. It was time, way past time, to do what she always did when things got bad. It was time to run. "Alright, forget the station. Is that freighter still here? How do I get to the hangar?"

"Caution: Master, I would advise against it. The turbolift to the hangar is locked by the emergency lockdown in the Dormitory level. The command console has been voice-print locked by the Maintenance Officer. Beyond that lie many hostile droids. I advise that you stay put and wait for rescue."

Well that was helpful. As always, it was up to her.

She pulled herself cautiously to her feet and leaned heavily against the wall while her vision settled down again. After that she followed her nose into Maintenance while the protocol droid clanked along behind her.

And there was the reason for the smell. There was a body on the floor, or at least what was left of one. It had been alternately crushed and scarred with plasma burns to the point it was hardly recognizable. She shuddered and looked way from the grisly sight. Poor bastard.

The rest of maintenance was a little more cheery. Bits and pieces of droids were set in organized piles around the chassis of two droids, a low-slung droid like the others she'd seen and another, bigger model. This one stood upright with two legs and arms, twin equipment mounts, and a shield generator module. If she ran into one of those she was probably dead. And there were definitely more somewhere on this level, if what happened to the chief over there was any indication.

In better news, the man's command console was still in one piece. Trusting that she'd hear droids coming before they got to her, she fired it up, and sure enough, it was voice locked. The only thing she had access to was the man's journal logs. "Damn."

She started pacing, a bad habit from bad times, but she was too worried to spare the attention to stop herself. Alright, she needed to get past this voice lock, and that meant she needed the code and some way to say it in the dead man's voice. "Wait . . ." she turned to the droid. "You worked in maintenance, right? Do you know the password?"

"Yes, master. I'm afraid it won't help, however. The maintenance officer must speak the words to unlock the console and turbolift."

Marina rolled her eyes. "Just tell me."

"... Affirmative. Maintenance Control Voiceprint ID: R1-B5."

Well, it was a start.

She peeked out into the hallway to ensure it was clear before stepping out into the hall and out of earshot of the protocol droid. Her trust of droids was definitely at a low point just now. She flicked on the com Atton had given her.

::Atton, are you there?::

::Marina, you're alive! Are you alright?::

::I'm fine. The turbolifts are locked down with a voice lock by the maintenance officer, and he's dead. Any ideas?::

::Hmmm . . . there are ways to get around voice locks. See if you can find any voice logs from the guy. With luck we can get a good enough voice sample to fool the computer. Then we'll need to find a way to play it back.::

Marina paused, thrown a little by Atton's sudden brisk professionalism. ::I found some on the security officer's system up there on the admin level. See what you can do. I'll work on a way to play it back.::

::Will do.::

She turned back to the console and pulled up the journals. She'd upload them to her datapad and see if she could send them to Atton somehow if the security logs weren't enough. But for now, it was time to hear the dead man's tale.

Log 253-11: New Droids

::... finished my examination of the droids from the Ebon Hawk freighter. The T3 unit looked like it had shut itself down, but the protocol droid made up for it. It talked my ear off, asking questions about the facility, the personnel, and so on. Still, it wanted to make itself useful, and it has some skill in speaking to droid behavior cores, so I put it to work until its Master wakes up in med bay. There's been some trouble with some of the mining droids, so I'm signing off.::

The protocol droid had access to the droid behavior cores? That was a huge red flag. She loaded up the next log.

Log 253-12: Jedi

::. . . been speaking to the protocol droid about the Jedi in medbay. I thought they had all gone away or been killed in the Jedi Civil War. The droid told me that his Master is the only Jedi he knows of in all the galaxy and that she'd served in the Mandalorian Wars almost ten years ago. That means she must have served under Revan for a time – maybe she knows what happened to Revan after the war?::

Damn that droid a thousand times!

Log 253-13: So Stupid!

::. . . been too busy to enter a log for a while. There's been more and more accidents since the Jedi arrived. The miners are starting to get restless, especially Coorta. He said the Exchange is offering a huge bounty on Jedi Knights and that we could make a fortune if we sell the Jedi on Nar Shaddaa. Security shot down that idea pretty quick, but I don't think Coorta and his men are going to give up that easy. I mentioned the trouble to the Jedi's protocol droid, and it seemed concerned about his Master's safety. I told the droid not to worry, that Coorta wouldn't . . .::

Things were starting to take shape in Marina's mind. She'd shown up on this rock unconscious on the Ebon Hawk. The droid had told everyone in sight she was a Jedi, and trouble started with this Coorta fellow. He'd teamed up with Maintenance to get the other miners out of the way, then Coorta had killed the Maintenance Officer and then . . . what then? Where was Coorta? Dead, if the droid was to be believed. No, something still didn't make sense. But if Coorta wasn't the one to suborn the protocol droid, then who was? Unless . . . the droid had done it alone? That shouldn't be possible. And yet . . . everything that had gone wrong, the droid had had a hand in. It had arrived, distracted from its activities by putting the spotlight on her, collected information on the facility and personnel, gained access to the droid behavioral cores, got the Maintenance Officer to upload its software, and then everyone was killed by the droids. There wasn't any other conclusion.

That HK droid was an assassination droid. She shuddered, suddenly hyper aware of its presence not a meter away from her . . . watching her. . . She loaded up the next log, just to give herself some time to process it and try to act naturally when it finished.

Log 253-14: Cool new toy!

::With the droid's help I made some upgrades to the sonic imprint sensor, using some of the droid's vocabulator subroutines. In addition to its ability to store and record verbal commands, it now has the droid's full array of languages, which makes it something of a portable translator. I tried to make sure the protocol unit got some of the credit, but the droid refused, saying the work was reward enough. I was thinking of installing the prototype in one of the mining droids as a test.

Well, that was both good news and bad. For starters, if she was lucky then she might be able to find one of these sonic sensors and play back the Maintenance Officer's code with it. The bad news was that the enterprising man had installed software into the droids which must have allowed for verbal access to core systems. He wasn't guilty of anything other than stupidity. The droid had played him, and he'd taken it hook, line, and sinker.

There was only one log left. Might as well be thorough.

Log 253-15: Voice-print ID

::. . . when the Dock Officer reported the droids repairing the Ebon Hawk I installed a voice-print ID on the droid console system. Someone ordered them to repair that freighter, but I can't find a trace of the order anywhere. If anyone tries that again, they won't be able to do that from this terminal unless I let them. The voice-print should cut any user off from central functions unless I give the code.::

Marina shook her head with a begrudging sense of pity. Of course there hadn't been a trace of it in the system. He'd opened up direct access to the droids themselves, there was no need to go through the system. The man was a dupe, but his incompetence had led to a lot of people getting killed. If he'd been any good at his job, they'd have all still been alive. This was all his fault.

She logged off the system and forced herself to act naturally as she started digging through the piles of parts and deactivated droids, looking for any sign of that sonic sensor. She felt herself start to relax as she fell into the familiar task, hands working the cold metal, fingers greased with oil. Her mind jumped from uncomfortable topic to uncomfortable topic, finally settling on a safe subject – Atton. What was his deal? He behaved like a lecherous moron to her face, but a professional while in action. What kind of person would schmooze you to your face then obey without question behind your back? He was a mystery, but a relatively safe one, considering everything else that had been going on.

::Hey, you there? I've got the voice mock-up ready for you.:: buzzed Atton's voice in her ear.

Huh, what do you know, the man might be competent after all. ::Good. Can you send it to my datapad?::

::What's the address on it?::

Marina shrugged unconsciously. ::No idea, and I don't have the password on whatever mail functions it might have. Send it out as an all-station alert from the admin console and it should pop up for me.::

After a brief pause Atton replied with a terse ::Done.::

Marina nodded and looked down at her hands again. She'd found what had started life as an intact vocabulator on one of the more advanced models able to reply to oral commands. Now though, it was different – it had been heavily modified, both in the hardware and software. She plugged her datapad into it and uploaded the voice print file. The on-board software synced the voice print after which she manually typed in the override. Perfect.

She walked back over to the command console and fired it up, ignoring the HK droid's watchful gaze. "Maintenance Control Voiceprint ID: R1-B5," spoke the dead man's voice, and the console unlocked itself. Her attention, however, was all behind her. How would the droid react? What would it do? Her hand hovered over the mining laser at her belt, sweat dripping down her forehead.

The droid did nothing.

Marina managed not to let out a relieved sigh and turned her attention back to the console before the droid could get suspicious. She flicked through command prompts rapidly until she found a map and pulled it up. The droid's words proved true – everything below the admin deck was still in emergency lockdown, the override for which was in the emergency shelters on the dormitory level. And there was no way to get there through those doors, except . . . Hmm. She might be able to get there through an emergency airlock on that side of the station, but she'd have to do a bit of a spacewalk to get there. Fortunately, the outer airlocks weren't locked down – it wouldn't be very helpful for emergency response teams to be locked out of the station, after all.

Alright, she had a plan. Well, the beginning of a plan.

Marina took a deep breath and walked briskly towards the hallway. "Master, where are you going? Master?"

Her nerve broke.

Marina sprinted out the door and down the hallway to the Fuel Depot. She could hear the droid coming after her, the heavy clanking of its legs moving far faster than any protocol droid. "Command: Master, halt immediately or I will be forced to subdue you."

Marina hit the hallway and turned right, making a beeline for the airlock. Purple force fields designed to contain explosions had clamped down over most of the facility, leaving only a single access pathway, and it was blocked by two huge droids. They leveled their twin mining lasers at her.

She charged, whipping out her own laser pistol and blasting away. The droid armor held firm, with only the faintest carbon scoring marking where she'd hit them.

The droids opened fire, their lasers super-heating the air as they shot wide. Marina didn't stop for an instant, didn't stop to think – she jumped. The imposing droids were nearly two meters in height, yet Marina cleared them easily, flipping at the apex of leap, and landing in a roll that brought her to her feet again and sprinting away. The droids heavy clanking as they turned to face her meant she didn't have much time.

The airlock was before her and she mashed the access panel madly as the doors ground open. The droids were closing fast, almost in range. She swore and ducked into the half-open air-lock and blasting the control panel in a single motion. The doors slammed shut, and not a moment too soon. A huge bang made her jump as the first droid started beating against the sealed door.

Then the mining lasers started to work.

Marina searched the room and quickly smashed the glass on the emergency access panel. She pulled the panel open as the emergency alarm started to wail and dragged out the space suit. It was huge, way too large for her, and about as primitive as it got, but it would do the trick. Hopefully. At last the final seal vacuum closed itself, she positioned jammed herself into the corner as best she could, gripping the emergency handholds in her over-sized, slippery gloves, and punched the bright red emergency release panel.

The airlock released, and the sudden rush of oxygen threatened to hurl her into space, but she held, she held, and it was gone. She was safe. There was no way the droids would open the entire floor to vacuum.

The airlock, weakened by the mining lasers, buckled and started to bow out.

Shit!

Marina moved out of the airlock, fighting the enforced slowness of zero-g movement. She pulled the safety harness clip from the space suit's waist and reached out to the safety lines on both sides of the narrow cat-walk.

The clip closed on the line just as the doors blew open. The press of escaping atmosphere was unstoppable, and she was bowled off the catwalk like a twig in a Tarisian rainstorm. The safety line held and she snapped tight, rotating wildly as debris from station launched past her. The two huge droids lost their grip on whatever they'd been holding on to and came at her like twin assault shuttles. The first missed, but the second clipped leg and spun her like a top at the end of the safety line.

Darkness gathered at the corner of her eyes as the G forces from her spin drove the blood from her brain. Then, as quickly as it had begun, it stopped.

She floated there in the silence for a long time, listening to the sound of her own breathing as her limbs floated limply in space.

Slowly, slowly, she opened her eyes.

The inside of her helmet was splattered with vomit, blocking most of her vision. Her mouth tasted horrible, her throat burned with acid, and the smell threatened to make her throw up again.

Have to . . . keep . . . moving.

Slowly she reached out, waving her hand limply until she came in contact with the safety line that was all that had saved her from a long, painful death floating among the asteroids. She tugged at it until she was floating back to the catwalk. She just lay there, limp, while the magnetized boots of the spacesuit slowly oriented her back upright and settled her down onto the catwalk once again.

It took a long time, but she convinced herself to take a single step towards the Dormitory level. Then another.

And another.