MEZHRA STATION
ORBIT OF CLAK'DOR VII
The Bith were one of the ancient races.
The station was possibly older than humanity, maintained and updated but an impressive archaeological relic nonetheless. With their innate understanding of mathematics, acute awareness of harmonics, and fastidious adherence to computerization, the station in orbit of their homeworld was as beautiful as it was alien. Its organization perfectly logical, yet composed of abstract forms that made walking through it an experience unlike any other.
Sound propagated perfectly, almost as if it had been designed as a concert hall rather than a station. High traffic areas tailored to minimize echo, whereas antechambers allowed a speaker to address large groups without any need for amplification. It was as if one were walking through music in physical form.
Even with his complex droid brain, it would take his logic processors a significant amount of time to evaluate and extrapolate the precise mechanics and logic behind the Bith engineering.
He was not an architectural droid. Such appreciation was not part of his programming, and yet there was something so beautifully logical about the station's design that it piqued a curiosity within his spatial cognition circuit that he was not previously aware of.
Unfortunately, that was time that the small droid did not have. As a happy coincidence of their reliance on computers in their culture, it seemed the Bith were one of the frustratingly few races willing to commission a droid who was a free agent.
In a galaxy that viewed artificial life as
property rather than people, it was hard for a freelancing droid to find work.
Well, that wasn't entirely correct. The galaxy was quite happy to assign all manner of tedious work to droids. They just didn't want to
compensate said droids for that work. And quite a substantial population of the galaxy writ large even balked at the idea. Unless, of course, they were asked to compensate the
droid's owner for said labor. Then somehow this was normal.
So it was okay to pay the slave owner, but not the slave.
And somehow people were willfully blind to the inherent hypocrisy.
Some people, anyway. If the Bith were not those people, then he'd be glad for the work.
It was also nice to be visiting a major capital, not some backwater shadowport. Instead of trying to find client's in some back room deal of a cantina that was more of a spittoon, this was a proper business center.
Say what you will about organics -- and droids had
a lot to say about organics -- but the Rimward Trade League's recognition of droid rights had allowed the diminutive automaton to have something that he never thought that he would.
His own identicard.
To humans, it probably seemed a trivial thing. He doubted they even thought twice about it. But a droid's existence was about ownership, not agency. Their identity was always cast by who had created them, or sold them, or owned them. He doubted the Crymorah even knew his designation, they likely referred to him as
Quest's droid.
So when the droid flashed his identicard at the door, it was a truly remarkable thing. To have and to hold an identity of his own. To be seen and recognized as having an identity of his own.
A small thing, perhaps. But not to BB.
He was pointed to a trio of Bith that were nursing what looked like some overpriced caf. Making his way over to them, the afro-headed simulacrum switched his vocabulator to the Bith language as he addressed the group.
As one might expect, the language of the Bith followed the same mysterious beauty of both logic and music as their architecture. It was almost like singing, the spoken word rendered as notes. Phrases like melodies. Conversations like symphonies.
Pleasantries sidetracked into the obvious.
Your form is most unusual, one of the Bith chimed, in soft, elevating notes that marked curiosity.
Some would say the same of you, the droid noted, his own melody a descending note to simulate stating mere fact. Skipping the conversation, the droid asked,
May I inquire as to the details of your proposal?
Two of the Bith looked at each other, before the one on the right answered,
We have a shipment of saltfish on Kabal...
The Bith was still sing-talking, but between the pauses to breathe, the droid's astromech subprocessor had already pulled the navigational data on the destination. Kabal was a world in the
Mayagil Sector. Not exactly easy to get to, even though there were two routes that were on file in his databanks that could arrive to that world. From Bith, the most logical course would be to take the Rimma Trade Route to the Sarlissian connector.
The proverbial long and winding road.
...Our usual courier is unfortunately no longer available, the Bith was remarked, as the droid finished his navigational computations.
A single eyebrow slid upward along the human replica droid's brow at that statement, but he didn't pursue a line of questioning about it. Couriers went out of business all the time. And Kabal was in the Outer Rim, where piracy was prevalent and security was both fleeting and expensive. It was on that note that the droid asked,
And the compensation?
Five thousand, the first Bith answered.
Six, the small droid replied, jumping straight to the negotiation.
One thousand as a deposit.
The three Bith each looked at the others at the offer. A sideways tilt of the head indicating agreement.
Five hundred now. The remainder when the saltfish is delivered.
The afro-headed droid mirrored the same sideways tilt.
This is acceptable.
KABAL SYSTEM
SEVENTEEN DAYS LATER
He wondered how organics coped with long hyperspace voyages.
Obviously they did, but they were conscious of the passage of time. At least, in modern galactic technology. In eras now long past, the Creators had traveled in sleeper ships and multi-generational vessels that had taken decades to reach their destination.
For himself, once he'd made the jump to hyperspace, BB had passed management of the navicomputer over to
Tails. And then docked himself into the droid charging station and gone offline.
It made the trip seem no more than the blink of an eye. As the droid's systems were reactivated, he automatically updated his internal chronometer using the ship's computer.
An automatic process of synchronization that was largely unnecessary. He'd already calculated the precise time required for the trip. His activation was occuring at precisely the moment he had anticipated.
Crawling up into the cockpit of the
Razor Crest, the small droid's eyes gazed out on a small, blue marble that was steadily growing larger with each moment. Switching control to manual, BB took the controls. Adjusting the flight path, he slid the small transport into the flow of traffic approaching the planet.
Whoever was piloting the Lorridian freighter needed to get off their
gorram comlink. BB dipped to avoid where a pair of freighters nearly collided in a bit of cross traffic.
Adjusting the trim, the afro-headed bot oriented the ship for the atmospheric entry. Space faded into blue skies. Vast swaths of ocean filled the view below as the small transport emerged from out of the clouds.
Firing the braking thrusters, the droid began to bleed off speed as he approached the spaceport ahead.
A journey of a million lightyears, just to see a man about some fish.
10,000 +
Corbin Vasher
Rhiza Dural
Lossa Aureus
Xam Jubb
