Trista headed back across the hall with her found sonic sensor clenched in her hand, one finger on the switch to activate it. So the droid wanted to play? The maintenance officer's paranoia, which had almost damned her, had come in handy at the last possible second.
She hid her hand behind her back as she approached the silvery droid. There was no way she was staying trapped with this thing.
"Hey."
The droid turned back, a light flickering in its optics. "Greetings: Master, it is good to see you still intact. How may I be of assistance?"
"Yeah, uh." Come on, Tris, pull it together. "You said the airlock's voice-locked, right?"
"Condescending Reiteration: Master, the console governing the maintenance area and the airlock is voice-printed. The mechanic grew paranoid as malfunctions increased and created the protocol as a last resort."
Trista frowned. "Leave 'condescending' out of your parameters from now on. What was the code?"
"Protest: But, Master, it will—"
She unlocked her jaw just in time to not speak through her teeth. "Did I stutter?"
"Placating Explanation: Very well, Master, the code is 'Maintenance Control: Voiceprint ID: R1-B5.' But, unless the terminated officer speaks the code, it is useless."
"I'm aware. You said that reciting the code, in his voice, would be beyond your ethical programming, right?"
"Affirmation: Master—"
Time to lay his condescension back on him.
"You know, I had a droid back in the Mandalorian Wars. We dressed him up in a set of Neocrusader armor, and that thing bluffed our way through an entire enemy line, all the way back to the Mandalorian headquarters. Good droid, all Revan's idea. Got its control cluster blasted as soon as they made us, but... anyway."
She shrugged. "My point is, it's a shame they've limited you to such 'so-called' ethical programming, don't you? I understand if you aren't able to recite the voiceprint — there's no need to lie about it. There's no shame in some actions being unreachable due to your own inadequacy."
The droid straightened, offended, and affixed her with what she was tempted to call a 'glare.' "Offended Objection: Master, there is nothing wrong with my communications functionality! I will prove it." Something clicked, almost like an organic clearing its throat. When he spoke again, it was with a male voice, unfamiliar to her. "'Maintenance Control: Voiceprint ID: R1-B5.' As you can see, there is nothing wrong with my functionality. Was that satisfactory?"
Trista smiled. "Yes, yes it was."
#
Atton sat in his chair, arms crossed and feet propped up on the terminal. He hadn't heard from his... what was she, acquaintance?... for hours. Or, it felt like hours.
He hadn't located any of his belongings, which annoyed him, even though he didn't have much. And he didn't like silence. Silence, time without distraction, meant too much time spent brooding or thinking and, for a man who wouldn't admit to running from his past actions, that was dangerous. He needed something to think about before his thoughts strayed too far out of his control.
He ran his tongue over the burn on his finger — hopefully he didn't have a permanent loss of feeling in it. With a bored sigh, he pulled out the only thing he had, his pazaak deck. He mostly flipped through it when he didn't have a second player, but even that would let his thoughts wander back to what he was avoiding.
Regret over this job had started before he even landed on Peragus. For a man who'd spent much of the last seven years avoiding Jedi, agreeing to ferry one to Nar Shaddaa for a bounty was a stretch. But they reassured him the Jedi was unconscious, and wouldn't even know he was there. Having seen the cargo now, he doubted it would have been a quiet trip either. Not that he was a bastion of nobility, but there were lines even he didn't cross.
But which Jedi? He flipped a +/-1 aimlessly. Over the past year, most of them had disappeared, but rumors were rife in every cantina he'd hit since the Temple emptied. The best estimates in the smuggling and bounty hunting worlds were that around twenty were still alive, not including Revan, wherever she was. Three had remained active and were found on Coruscant not long after the rest had left. Dead, of course.
There were rumors about a few scattered throughout the Republic fleet. Admiral Carth Onasi had come under scrutiny occasionally, given his close ties to the Jedi, but always brushed off questions. And he hadn't been seen off the fleet longer than 24 hours in five years. So it wasn't like he was sneaking off to any secret Jedi rendezvous, or someone would know.
And every so often he'd hear about one getting carted to Nar Shaddaa, dead — so that was, what, fifteen left?
Judging from her questions, she hadn't been back since the Mandalorian Wars either, and that limited the possibilities even further. The Jedi who'd followed Revan had turned almost wholesale... and they were all dead.
If he was dealing with a Sith, well, that'd make everything better.
He put her at about thirty, Knight rank, though she could have been edging forty. Jedi age could be hard to tell – clean living, or whatever. Tall, almost willowy, with lifeless blue-green eyes and hair that might be blond when not caked in dried kolto. He'd tried reading her, but hadn't been successful. She was even more emotionless than the Jedi he'd dealt with before, but not out of effort. More like a void, like any emotions had been extracted.
And she didn't act like a Jedi, even discounting her attire. She hadn't tried to read his mind yet — he'd know, and he still had his walls up. It just seemed... harder to keep them up around her. He wanted to talk to her, to agree with her. To get close, to do what she wanted—
He shook himself and dropped his deck, scattering the cards across the floor. He was better than this. He was a professional. Or had been, once. He wasn't a slack-jawed lackey that followed every order someone gave him, or he wouldn't have run.
Would he?
Atton sighed and picked up his cards.
There was something familiar about her. He didn't think they'd met, or he'd remember. While his 'type' over the past few years had been 'breathing,' he could admit when stunning fell into his lap. After a shower and some actual food, she'd put a lot of the galaxy to shame.
But that was it. He wanted her, of course, and couldn't be alone there. But that niggling feeling he'd seen her before made him hesitate.
After collecting his deck he settled back at the console and, eventually, caught himself flipping his knife over his hand. He threw it across the room like he'd touched the field around his cell. Nope. Didn't need to play with sharp objects now. He'd left the old business behind, and he wasn't looking to reapply.
Not today. Not with her.
Atton's terminal chimed as it reconnected to Trista's comm, and he breathed a sigh of relief. A quick check of the facility map to confirm her location and—
"Hey, glad to see you're back," he started. "I lost your signal after you left the tunnels. But now I'm picking you up outside — tell me that's not right." Hopefully her idiotic Jediness hadn't walked out an airlock.
"Maybe you should look up."
He did. Outside, on the scaffolding, stood a figure in a silvery, bulky environmental suit bright against the blackness of space. They waved, and he rolled his eyes.
"You're insane. You realize that, right?"
"The miners stopped reporting in, and I've got evidence there's a problem with the ventilation. I have to get there."
Ugh, Jedi nobility. "And what about us? They're probably all dead, and you're wasting time on a rescue mission?"
"Don't be ridiculous. A supervisor has the codes we need to reach the hangar. Besides, this was the only way for me to get back, with you locking the station down and all."
"Right, it's all my fault. You're crazy, even for a Jedi."
Trista held up her hand. "Okay, while we're having this conversation, I want to make something clear. I am not a Jedi. I have not been a Jedi for nearly ten years. I have no desire to ever be one again, and I never want to be called one again. Are we clear?"
Something chirped on his console, and he glanced down with a groan. "Right, whatever. Look, you need to get out of there."
"Believe me, I'm trying."
"It's not that. Whatever's left of the venting systems is online, probably from the explosions. They're venting fuel right at you."
"Shit." He looked up. "Mr. Rand, I need to warn you. There's a potential hostile in there — a droid. It was in maintenance. It claims it's a protocol model, but I don't think it is. Just, be careful."
"You think a droid is doing this?"
"It seemed intent on keeping me in there or medbay. I suspect it overdosed the kolto tanks with a sedative, and it might have shut down the whole facility."
"I don't think a droid — wait. You said it looked like a protocol droid?"
"Can this wait?" She glanced behind her. "I'm a little exposed out here."
"Just humor me and describe it."
"Silver. More robust than a normal protocol model. I'd say someone built it for combat, but there weren't any obvious combat mounts."
"Weird speech pattern?"
"Definitely."
"Shit, sounds like an HK-50 model droid. They're bounty hunters, probably after you."
Trista sighed. "Great. Well, watch yourself."
"You too. I'll see what I can do about the venting, but I'm locked out of most everything—" Something chirped, and he glanced at the top part of the screen. "Ah, shit, what now?"
"Now what?"
"There's a ship coming in. They might have heard everything we said." He caught sight of something behind her. A large red and silver structure, a diamond-shaped head— "I've got a bad feeling about this."
Trista turned in the clumsy suit as the Hammerhead broke through the asteroids, gliding to a docking tube extending out from the station. The airlocks merged, and a fuel line extended to her left.
"Did it register a name?"
"It's Republic." Figures. "Looks like... the Harbinger?"
"Ah, shit." Trista echoed. Atton looked up again, but she didn't turn back. "I'll pick up the pace. There's no telling what's on that ship, but I doubt it's friendly."
"Great, I'll bar the forward airlocks. Don't worry about me, I can take care of myself. Just... be careful?"
He looked up as Trista turned back and tapped her hand to the front of her helmet, then hurried off.
Atton sprinted away from his console, heading for the airlock between the tube and the facility. It hadn't opened yet, and he scanned the room for anything he could use. A few deactivated droids were tumbled nearby, and he tore several pieces off them and jammed the airlock's mechanisms. It'd hold them for a few minutes, at least.
He returned to the administration area and collected chairs, forming a rough barricade around the administration consoles. It'd be better than nothing.
And if it was just the Republic, well, he'd deal with that when it happened too.
#
Trista moved along the scaffolding as quickly as possible, ignoring the vents as they singed her suit. She shed it as soon as she was inside the airlock and headed into the facility.
Here, like everywhere else, only held rogue droids and corpses. She shut down the dormitory lock-down and headed in, reaching for the first door.
She'd smelled death before. The battlefields of the Mandalorian Wars had been rife with it, though she had avoided it as much as possible since. So the stench that met her was not foreign to her in the slightest. Instead it was uncannily familiar, though not so familiar that it did not take her off guard. She gagged, her stomach revolting against the indignities she'd forced upon it. A mining droid came after her, bearing down with its arm as she doubled over and retched. Without thinking, she held up her hand to block, and the blow never came.
Trista straightened and stared into the blank expression of a sparking droid, forcibly deactivated and shut down. With a shudder, she drew her hand across her mouth and pulled her shirt over her nose, thankful for the fuel that masked the death.
True to her instincts, and the stench, everyone in the dormitories was dead.
She wasn't an expert, but she figured "two days" was a good estimate, given circumstantial evidence and the limpness of the bodies when she nudged one with her foot. Keeping her shirt tugged up over her nose, she rummaged through pockets for anything that might help, trying to ignore how the flesh squished under her fingers.
A macabre twenty minutes later, she emerged from the dorms with several holologs and the turbolift codes — a simple military flashcode — on a datapad clenched in her hand. Trista picked her way through more droids until she reached it. Three more bodies lay on the floor outside the lift, just as squishy and decomposing as their companions. She stepped over one with a slight curl of her lip under her shirt. The console waited.
She plugged in the flashcode.
Unauthorized Code. Access restricted.
Trista frowned and, just in case, entered it again.
Unauthorized Code. Access restricted.
Trista stepped back and frowned deeper, looking back at the flash code. How was it wrong? How had it changed? Her eyes caught a flashing indicator next to New Holorecording. Tentatively, she reached out and pushed the button.
The screen filled with an image of three human males. One frenetically tapped at the console.
"Hey, Coorta, the turbolift's shut down."
"Try the code again." A man behind him, likely Coorta, was clearly suffering from this inconvenience. "And don't worry about the miners and their transmission. By the time help arrives, we'll be on Nar Shaddaa living like kings."
Trista swallowed. All the way there, with her unconscious or otherwise immobile somewhere on their ship.
"Oh, they won't be leaving the dormitories." The maintenance officer, likely over the intercom. "The explosion within the tunnels has damaged the ventilation systems, causing breeches in the core exhaust conduits."
No. Not the maintenance officer. Then—
"But that will kill them all!" Coorta protested. At least he had some sense of humanity inside his greed.
"Not all, but I'll correct that issue shortly."
"Coorta! The code's not working!" The man at the terminal was frantic now, fear wracking his features.
"Keep trying it! W-why are you doing this? Why me?"
"It was never about you. The Jedi is all that interests me. But then you had to ruin everything by revealing her identity and then trying to harm her. And that I cannot allow." The next statement froze the blood in her veins. "Statement: You are a risk, Coorta. You are impulsive, crude... and soon, deceased."
Trista turned away as blasterfire and screaming took over the holorecord. She'd left Kreia and Atton trapped with a homicidal droid, with only Atton even warned. Her hands hovered, ready to enter the code again, as she turned back.
The video was still running.
"Mocking query: Coorta, Coorta? Are you dead yet?" She'd blast that droid in the face when she saw him. "Smug statement: I believe I forgot to mention I reversed the turbolift codes, in case you got this far."
She'd never been happier to let a video play out.
The turbolift back to the administration level was a quick one, and she hurried toward the door at the end of the hall. It opened as she reached out to touch it, and she jerked to a stop at the sight of Kreia outside.
"Krei—"
"I have felt a disturbance." Her features were still dispassionate under her hood. "Our enemy is here. We must leave at once."
"Who? I must know."
"Now is a time for action, not questions." Kreia snapped the statement — or, 'nearly snapped' in the way Trista's old masters used to chastise her. "But the one that fired upon the Ebon Hawk as we attempted to rescue you is here, and he will not let us go without bloodshed. He will not allow you to escape twice."
Trista sighed and drew her vibrosword again. "All right. If we need to hurry, then let's hurry."
Kreia fell into step next to her, and they jogged for the center.
"We must make our way to the docking area on this level," Kreia explained. "I fear the airlock has opened and if so, we must be on our guard."
"Mr. Rand was securing—"
"Whatever 'Mr. Rand' has done to the airlock will be temporary. If we cannot reach the Ebon Hawk, we must escape on the ship that has docked."
"Why are you so interested in this Ebon Hawk?"
"I am something of a scholar."
Trista glanced at her from the corner of her eye and sighed. "Right. I'll take your word for it."
