Star Wars - Shifting Gears - Unpublished (3 page)

“I’ll have to use that one.” Amalk pointed to an olive-gray leg hanging behind the counter. “At least until I can fashion one to match the rest of his body.”

“I am certain Y3-FE9 could help. He’s becoming increasingly proficient at welding joints. I would help if I could. But mechanics and electronics are not my areas of expertise.”

Amalk didn’t reply. He was busy carrying the black protocol droid over to his worktable. With the dust brushed off its casings, the droid looked smooth and glossy, with few sharp angles. Nothing marred its metal surface. He laid it down almost reverently. “I told the Jawas I was only buying you for spare parts. Truly thought so at the time,” he said to himself. “But maybe I can get you running. You’d be quite the showpiece. Wonder what languages you know? How many? Wonder where you’ve been. Who made you?”

“If you do not need me for anything sir, I would like to go out back and watch the hologame.”

Amalk waggled his fingers, dismissing the scout droid. “Hmm. Maybe I could sell you to a crime lord who collects fine droids. Or to a merchant who travels Imperial lanes. No matter who I sell you to, you’ll make a magnificent informer.” He flipped open the chestplate and began humming. Picking through his tools, Amalk began repairing the droid.

“Definitely fixable,” he said after a few hours had passed and a thorough memory flush was finished. “Not in such bad shape after all. No. Not at all. Language chip intact. The Jawas didn’t know what they had. All you need now is a new leg, a specially-fitted reactivator switch, and my deeply-implanted intelligence program. Undetectable, unflushable. Perfect.” He continued to hover over the droid.

“No one will ever learn you’re working for the Alliance. Your photoreceptors and audial recorders will absorb all manner of Imperial activity, and you’ll report back to me whenever you’re able to sneak away to download information. Why, maybe I’ll even be able to sell you to an Imperial officer. Shine you up just right to catch his attention. You’d gain first-hand information. Yes, you’ll make a fine addition to the Rebel spy network. You know, I’ve placed nearly 50 droids with my program seeded deep inside them. They’ve been spying on the Empire for more than a year. You’ll join them shortly.”

He oiled the black droid’s motivator, then carefully polished the metal plates that covered most of the body. “You are a beauty,” he whistled softly. The droid’s face was well-defined, not unlike the visage of the chef droid he’d acquired a few weeks ago. But this one was almost handsome by human terms. The brow swept back to form a ridge that looked like the rounded knuckles of a closed fist. “Judging by that overlarge locomotor, I’d say you will be able to move quickly. Oil you enough and you’ll be quiet, too. You have some interesting attachments and compartments. I’ll look those over in the morning.”

Amalk pushed himself away from the workbench and retrieved the olive-gray leg. “Hate to put this on you, but I want you up and walking around. Make you a little lopsided, but just for a couple of days. Efeenine will help me craft you a new leg, black and shiny, so well-made that no one but me and you—and Efee, of course—will know it’s not your original. There!” He attached the wires from the gray leg to the droid’s hip, oiled the joints, then connected the power unit.

The black droid’s eyes glowed white against the inky sockets.

Arvee stared up at the stars, white pinpricks against the black sky. Most of the dust had settled, revealing that his makeshift bomb had taken out quite a few stormtroopers. Their armor-clad bodies were scattered among the downed Rebels, arms and legs at odd angles like broken dolls. So many bodies.

The toadlike quadruped swallowed hard. He’d been in firefights, but not in any with this many casualties. “Back to the shuttle!” he called to the remaining Rebels. “Move your feet or none of us will be making it off this dirtball!”

There were still several dozen stormtroopers to contend with— easily three times as many as there were Rebels still standing. But Arvee trusted that his men were better than the Imps. He cocked his wide head and picked up what sounded like an incessant wail. The speeder bikes had reached the far end of the gap. They’d be here in the space of a few heartbeats. The noise was loud and of varying pitches. Arvee swore under his breath. There were more speeder bikes than he had first guessed.

“Be quick!” he hollered to his men. He squatted amid the bodies between the two hills, hoping his coloration would help hide him. Arvee intended to cover the retreating Rebels, even though he suspected his heroism would cost him his life. He would take a lot of stormtroopers with him, he knew, and prayed enough Rebels would make it back to the shuttle to man the craft and report the Vengler incident.

Behind him the sound of blaster rifles continued. Both sides were firing, he surmised, as the Imps’ rifles had a higher tone to them. There was another explosion in the distance. Arvee could tell one of his men had fashioned a makeshift bomb out of blaster packs. Faintly, he heard a victory cry. The voice was Sullustan. He allowed himself a weak smile.

“Maybe the two-leggers can make it out of here after all,” he whispered. Then the speeder bikes were practically on top of him, and he made out the forms of stormtroopers running behind them. “Where did all of these Imps come from?” He swiveled his borrowed rifle and began thumbing the trigger. He aimed for the lead bikes’ engines, netting two before the scout troopers realized what was happening. The bikes sparked and sputtered and took their hapless riders careening along what was left of the hillside. “Two down, ten to go,” he grumbled as he dodged a blast from a bike cannon and saw another bike headed straight toward him. “Ah, womp rats. That one spotted me.”

Arvee darted to his right as a speeder bike cannon blasted the spot he’d been occupying only a moment before. He spun about on his rear legs, raised his rifle, and felt himself flying forward. A scout on another bike had passed behind him, ramming the stock of his blaster soundly against the quadruped’s skull.

“Gather the prisoners.” Arvee faintly heard the stormtrooper’s voice as he was drifting toward unconsciousness. “We’ve plenty of room for them on the ship.”

Arvee woke in the cargo hold, his legs shackled to the wall. His head hurt and his lungs burned from inhaling all the dust and the blaster fire-tinged air. He squinted through the dim light and focused on his fellow Rebels. He counted 20, all shackled like himself. That meant 130 had died in the ambush. Perhaps, if the Force was with them, some had escaped.

He shook his head. “Wasn’t supposed to happen this way,” he muttered.

“Certainly it was.” The voice was clipped and laced with arrogance, coming from a shadowed doorway.

Arvee peered into the darkness, his eyes separating the shadows until he found the lanky body of an Imperial captain. The captain smiled and took a few steps closer.

“Your information was wrong,” the captain said smugly. “Your droid spy was fed false reports, made to believe there was only a small outpost near the mine.”

“The base…” Arvee began.

“Has been on Vengler for quite some time,” the captain finished.

“Why?”

The captain laughed. “Why go to all this trouble to defeat only one handful of Rebel soldiers? Not just one. Dozens. You see, there are other traps being sprung as we speak.”

Arvee sagged against the wall.

“You, and the captured Rebels from our other operations, will be taken to a stronghold on Wayland, where you will be…” he paused, searching for a word. “Expertly questioned.”

“You’ll gain no information from me or my men,” Arvee spat.

“Oh, but we will. Eventually. And it will help lead to the downfall of your pitiable Alliance. You cannot win. The Empire is too strong, has tendrils everywhere. Now, if I were you, I’d get some rest. This will be the last good night’s sleep you’ll have.”

“I need to get some sleep.” Amalk backed away from the black protocol droid and ran his fingers through his thinning hair. “Been working on you all night.” He glanced toward the shop window, where the pink light of dawn was peeking through. “Yes, get a couple of hours of rest, then give you an oil bath. Put you on display.”

He’d made room for the new droid. Amalk’s line of protocol droids had an empty space, right in the center. The protocol units were all shut down, conserving their power for the coming day. The astromechs had long-since finished their hologames and had joined the rest of Amalk’s inventory in what passed for sleep.

“You can stay up if you like,” Amalk said to his new acquisition. “Make yourself at home. Think of a name for yourself.” He yawned and rubbed his eyes. “See you after a nap.”

The droid’s white eyes watched Amalk head to the back room. His black head swiveled silently this way and that, taking in the stock of droids, noting none were active, not even the scout. But to be certain… The droid glided behind the counter, retrieved the restraining bolts Amalk kept there for customers. There were just enough for the droids it considered a threat. Finished, it moved noiselessly forward, following Amalk’s path. It stepped through the doorway, raised its right arm, and a thin blaster beam shot from a palm-plate and struck the back of the tinker as he was pulling up the comforter and climbing into bed.

“Wha…” Amalk fell to his knees and immediately fumbled in his pocket for his sole weapon, a small hold-out blaster he always kept with him in the event someone tried to rob his shop. He tugged it free and gritted his teeth as he turned to face the intruder. The pain from the wound renewed its intensity when he moved, and he bit down on his lower lip to keep from crying out. Then his mouth dropped open when he saw the black protocol droid take aim at him.

“You?” Amalk fired. The beam from his weapon glanced off the glossy metal and ricocheted harmlessly away. He fired again and again as the droid walked closer.

“No,” the droid said.

It was the first word Amalk had heard the droid speak.
It must have connected its vocabulator,
he thought,
when I was busy cleaning my tools. But why? I wiped its memory. It’s a protocol droid. Not a killer.

“No,” it repeated. “I’ll not kill you with this blaster. There would be too many questions.” Its angular head swiveled on his neck, its white eyes locked on the vat in which Amalk’s droids received oil baths. “Yes.”

Amalk crawled toward the back door, his movements slow from age and pain. The droid followed, stopped him with a strong hand on his shoulder. The tinker struggled, but the droid held him fast, then lowered a hand to his other shoulder, picked him up effortlessly.

“Wh-wh-what are you?” Amalk stammered.

“Not a protocol droid, not something to be put on display and sold as a spy.” The droid’s eyes brightened. “I already am a spy. And I serve a master far better than you.”

“The Empire,” Amalk said.

The droid nodded.

“But I wiped your memory.”

“You thought only you could create so complex a program, so deep it could not be detected, not be flushed.”

“Someone discovered me.”

“And someone is undoing everything you have done.”

Amalk sobbed openly. “The Alliance. What have I done?”

The droid carried him to the oil bath, dropped him in the vat and held his head above the inky black surface. “Your nephew will arrive in the spaceport tomorrow and will discover your body. An accident. You drowned while trying to help an astromech out of the vat. Your nephew Eld will inherit your shop and inventory. Pick up where you left off—selling droids that spy for the military.” The droid pushed Amalk’s head below the surface, held the old man there while he feebly struggled. “But he will sell to a different clientele. And it is the Empire that will profit from the intelligence network.”