“Where is your charge?” She mouthed the syllables, trying to get the words to come out in the proper tone. While the Droid language was based off of Basic, each grade of droids had its own renditions and separate isms, adding symbols, set language, and other things so that the way and tone in which a beat or a box sounded, could change the meaning and structure of the words.
The droid paused for a minute, it's red eyes flaring for just a second. And then the lips shut over the top. Its head drooped, not meeting. Miranda's gaze.
“Gone,” it said, the low tone registering with either guilt or shame. Miranda couldn't tell which.
The Ironside crossed his arms and looked intently at Miranda. She turned back towards him.
“He says his charge has been kidnapped.” So sue her, she was exaggerating on the translation a bit, but she wanted to get more out of this Ironside who wouldn’t even tell her what questions to ask.
“Gone from my control,” the droid continued.
Miranda translated for Eric.
“He said, taken out of his vicinity; that his charge is no longer his own.” She added on that last part. But he had implied it with his last word. Or at least, that was one way to interpret Droid. That was her job in this space, after all.
The Ironside’s helmet moved back and forth between the droid and the girl.
“What else? I need a location,” Eric said.
“No place,” he said.
“You can tell me. It is safe,” Miranda said, trying to reassure the old droid, while at the same time coaxing him into telling her what the Ironside wanted.
“No place I can go. No place for droid or human,” he said back. Which wasn't really an answer. It was more like the expression of an emotion of giving up.
“Where?” Miranda said, emphasizing that she really needed the information. That all of this his surroundings, his imprisonment, wouldn't go away until he told her what the Ironside wanted to know.
The droid remained silent.
Miranda sighed. “He says that his charge has gone outside of his vicinity.”
Eric let out a small curse.
“Who is this charge?” Miranda asked Eric.
The Ironside tilted his head helmet down at her. ‘He must have put his helmet back on when we entered the room,’ she thought to herself.
It had taken Miranda a while to register that fact. Everything here was so alien, she decided she liked him much better with the helmet. It made him separate, less human that way. It made it easier to deal with him.
“That is classified information,” Eric said.
‘Fine. It's classified information that I want to know,’ Miranda thought.
“If you want to know any more information from this droid, then I need to know who his charge is. So that I know what to ask him,” she said.
She was tired of this game. Tired of being dragged around and forced to do things. Her family was dead, her life was over. She was being kept from the next phase of her life because she had to speak Droid to apparently this droid that otherwise usually could speak human speak Common.
“What's wrong with him anyway?” she asked, trying to change the subject so that she could get back around to it.
“System Programming wiped,” the Ironside said, starting to pace back and forth. “Rebels got hold of him and wiped his system access memory. They couldn't actually erase his programming memory. But they could erase his language settings. Now all he speaks is Droid.” The Ironside raised his hand, pointing at the poor Third Gen droid.
“What's so special about this charge?” she asked again.
Eric sighed, exasperated.
“We just have to find him, pronto.”
‘So it was a him,’ Miranda thought as she contemplated this newfound knowledge. So the droid had looked after someone important. Important enough to kill a whole family of farmers on an independent planet in the middle of the edge and cover it up, just so that no one would know the direction the rebels have been flying. Important enough to trouble with wiping a droid’s language box when they didn't have the time to kill it. Or couldn't kill it. MIranda didn’t know how hard it was to kill a droid. Pinning Oscar down for his yearly diagnostics was a pain. Every year they would draw straws for it. But not this year. From now on she was the straw. She shivered.
This must be one very important person. What were these rebels planning, and who was so important in all the galaxy that an Ironside team would be assigned to recapture them? Possibly a rebel leader? Or maybe even one of the royal family?
Miranda snapped her fingers.
“Who is your charge?” she asked the droid. She wasn't going to get it out of the Ironside, so she was going to get it out of this droid. Or she wasn't going to go one iota further on this journey.
“Beep Beep Boop,” said the droid. Miranda’s jaw dropped. There was no way. There was no possible way. The person that this droid was protecting was the Crown Prince.
Miranda's heart began to race. Her chest felt tight. Her head spun. If she wasn’t careful the world would give way without her on it.
The Prince. No wonder they sent a troop of Ironsides on an interstellar chase across the galaxies against the rebels.
“Miranda,” said Eric, his voice cutting through the noise in her head.
How could rebels even get their hands on the prince? Adamantium was the crown jewel of the Empire. A royal not just in name, but in action. His face adorned all of the holos, even in their small planetary farming community. Everyone knew what he looked like; what he had done. How he had saved all the planets during the Galactic wars. And his rise among the Ironsides to be one of the top military leaders of the day, all while still preparing to be Emperor.
“Miranda, what did he say? I need to know.”
Mind you, everyone knew that the Senate ruled the Galactic them. The Emperor was more of a title, a tradition. Something to give credence to the old ways, so that others would know that there was a head to the snake. But it was a head without fangs. The Emperor had a say. He could speak in senate meetings and attend. But he had no vote.
They were a people's Empire. Each planetary outpost and galactic system sent representatives to the Senate. And even as far out here in the territories, they had representation. It was the way of the people to have a voice in the government. A say in the machine called The Empire.
The machine that kept everyone at peace, and together, and flowing. That kept planets being terraformed and new spaces being reached out to, galaxies reformed for human advancement. And now to know that someone had snatched the poor Prince right from wherever he had been serving; probably a battlefield.
Miranda shook her head. How in the world had she gotten involved in this? She needed to find out what has happened to the prince. Even as Eric asked, “Did he give you the planet’s name?”
“No, I’ll ask again,” she told him.
“What planet?” Miranda said, trying to calm her facial expressions so as not to give away that she now knew. She knew who the target the Ironside was trying to protect was.
“Beep boop boop,” the droid responded. Miranda looked at him, a frown at the corners of her mouth. She hadn’t quite understood what he said.
“Beep beep bop,” she said. Please repeat.
The droid remained silent. Oscar, on the other hand, got super excited under the table and started to beep frantically at her.
“Beep beep beep bop bop, beep beep beep bop bop,” he yelled.
‘Do SHUT UP Oscar,’ she thought. Then she started to listen to what he was actually trying to communicate. It was the same sentence over and over again. Like a child trying to scream at its parent who wouldn't listen.
“Beep beep beep bop bop, beep beep beep bop bop,” he repeated over and over again.
Miranda looked at Oscar.
"Alpha Carcerus." She said it out loud to make sure she was translating it right. The droid in front of her melted towards the floor. All the life in his mechanical parts seem
ed to dry up in a rush. At that exact moment Oscar squealed with joy at being heard. Eric swung Miranda's chair around. Her knees banged into the stone leg of the desk.
"Ouch," she said. That was going to leave a bruise.
“Did you say Alpha Carcerus?” He pronounced each syllable, making sure that she heard him.
“Ouch. Like I said, Yes. That's what Oscar said.”
Eric looked down at the little droid. If a droid without a face could stick its tongue out at someone, that’s what Oscar would have been doing at that exact moment.
“Not him.” Eric pointed to the pile of parts that used to be a living, if not breathing, droid.
“Yes, that is what I said.” Miranda was getting tired of this back and forth.
“We need to go. Now.” Eric grabbed her by the arm and pulled. Miranda looked at him, puzzled.
“What is that place? And why do we need to go now?” she asked. Eric just gave her one last look before yanking her fully out of the chair and towards the door. “And what about him?” she said, pointing back to the droid.
“The forces here will take care of it,” Eric said.
“But...” Miranda protested.
“He needs a reboot and a redesign. We couldn't afford to do that before. But now that we have all the information we need...”
Miranda pulled back from Eric so she could stare at him. He was halfway in and out of the door.
“I'm still confused.”
Eric sighed.
“Look, it's relatively simple. With the help of your Oscar, we have a planetary name. We know where they've taken the prisoner,” he said. Miranda nodded her head, her arms still crossed. Exasperation still on her face.
“There's no time to waste here.”
On that they both agreed, but Miranda wanted to make sure she wasn’t running towards certain death, lead by someone without even a notion of a plan.
She looked back at the pile of droid. And ahead at the Ironside. Those were her two options: staying in this room with a lifeless droid in the dark, or going on whatever adventure that lay ahead on this planet that seemed to scare the life out of this droid. It was a hard choice. But she moved towards the door anyways.
“All right. Let's go.”
Chapter 10
Miranda strapped herself into the seat. First, she had to maneuver the large belt buckles with heavy metal clips attached to synthetic fabrics she’d never felt before. Once fastened in, her hands found a home gripping the handlebars on either side of the seat.
It was a good thing no one else wanted to hold them. Her left side was empty, but Eric sat to her right. He made no move to remove her hand from the handle. In fact, he wasn’t really moving at all.
It was her first time riding in a shuttle off planet. Even the idea of leaving the place where she was born, the only home that she had ever known, was beyond her imagination of just a week ago. It now seemed incredibly hard. All she wanted to do was to close her eyes and wake up back in her warm, comfy bed with her quilted blanket that her mother had made. She opened her eyes. She was still in the shuttlecraft.
A pilot sat at the helm; his badge said that his name was Rycer. Two regular army infantry soldiers sat on the shuttle guns to the left and right of him. Miranda hadn’t gotten a good look at their badges as they traveled up off planet to the waiting starship that would carry them on the next leg of their journey. Eric sat next to her, and another Ironside sat across from him. Both of them looked relaxed, possibly asleep again.
Miranda smirked. ‘Wouldn't it be great just to hide your expressions and all of your emotions behind a helmet?’ she thought. She couldn't wait until she had passed all the tests and gotten to that helmet to hide behind. Then, and only then, could she probably sleep on an aircraft like this instead of being so freaked out that the idea of rest had completely abandoned her.
“You okay back there?” asked one of the gunners.
“Yeah, fine,” said Miranda, feeling anything but. The glint off his red uniform as he turned towards he made her smile involuntarily. The Ironside across from her caught the smile.
“You know why regular military wear all red,” he said.
“No,” Miranda confessed. This was the second time she’d ever seen a regular military officer. She hadn’t even remembered that they wore red, or if it had been a part of her holo lessons.
“It’s to hide the blood stain.”
“Whose blood?” Miranda asked, not sure if she wanted the answer.
“Why, the rebels we blow up, of course,” said the soldier.
At the same time the Ironside said, “Theirs, of course.”
Miranda tried to keep the confusion off her face, but some of it must have shown through because both of them broke out into laughter. She could feel the red creep up her face.
“My name’s Gunther, but everyone calls me Cash,” the gunner said, reaching out a hand for her to clasp. She reached hers out awkwardly. She’d heard about off worlders clasping hands, but no one in her family did it. When her hand fumbled to repeat the moves his made, more red burned on her face.
“I think we met before,” she finally stammered out.
“Oh?” The soldier sounded amused.
“Yeah. At a bride auction.”
The soldier laughed. “Sorry, I’m not in the market for one of those!” Then he turned back around.
‘This is going to be a long flight,’ she thought, just as the shuttle landed with a thump.
Miranda loosened her grip on the handles. That was quick. They hadn’t been in the air for more than a few minutes at the most. Not even enough time for her to feel the weight of leaving her planet behind.
She felt herself lift off the floor for a few seconds before the gravitational simulator on the flight deck kicked in. For the perfect of moments she was flying; then her stomach hit the floor and her body felt heavier than normal. Then everything went up again to a normal feeling. She shook her head to try and clear it.
She looked around the transport. Eric looked like he was still sleeping, the bump of landing not even phasing his relaxed pose. The other Ironsides all remained the same. Nothing new to them. Miranda tucked that information away. She’d have to get used to the gravitational shifts between planet and space.
That’s when the real wait happened. Miranda lost track of the time as they sat inside the belly of the starship, waiting to be let on board. It was a good thing they didn’t have to wait in orbit for all the paperwork it took to land one of these things. First, they had to wait for the pilot to give all the necessary call signs. There were a lot of call signs. Strings of numbers that left Miranda’s head spinning. Then came the paperwork. Each member of the crew had to confirm their identity on the roster and fill out a questionnaire.
“This is how we tell the rebel ships from the Empire ships,” Cash informed her. Miranda’s ears perked up.
“They bury every landing in paperwork, knowing that any rebel forces bent on taking over a ship would give up halfway through, override the system, and burst forth to find themselves trapped and fired upon.”
“For real?” Miranda asked. The other Ironside nodded his head in agreement.
“Every word,” he said, the sound coming out through his helmet crisp as if it got cooked and then fed out a speaker.
“And when we’re done with the paperwork?” she asked.
“Then the real fun happens,” Cash supplied.
“The real fun?” Miranda asked.
“Yeah,” he said. “We get decontaminated.”
Miranda gave him a puzzled look. Eric leaned forward.
“We get a twenty four hour decontamination cell,” he supplied.
“Oh,” Miranda said, sitting back in her seat. She tried to look like that didn’t scare her. That she knew that coming off planet, you needed to be in decontamination for twenty four hours. Normal procedures that she’d never heard of before today.
“By then we should be in orbit,” Eric supplied.
“So we aren’t going to really get to be on the ship?” Miranda asked. Eric finished typing in what he needed to fill out on the holo and handed it to her.
“It’s super easy. Just fill out what you can; put your finger here... That’s right.”
He guided her hands over the keys, showing her how to fill out the forms. One box after another. This was definitely one way to kill patience. If she’d been part of a rebel team she would have given up and stormed the ship by now.
“The hyperspace trip is only fourteen hours from here,” Eric said.
“That’s close.” She marked another box. They were to the Yes or No questions. Like had she ever had an ingrown toenail. Did she menstruate, and if so, when was the last time. Was she covered in unnecessary spots. She made sure to check no on that one, not knowing what necessary spots would look like, but unwilling to want to find out.
“So we will be in decom the entire time,” Eric finished.
“Saves time if we don’t wait,” Cash supplied. All the men made the same grunt noise at the same time.
Miranda clicked another box. When was this form ever going to end, and did they really need to know if she had been attacked by an ors in the last 24 hrs? The answer was ‘No’, but still, what difference did it make?
“There, just sign here and initial there, and...” Eric took the holo from her. He looked it over and pressed one more button. “There. All done.”
The doors to the landing bay separated, providing a narrow path from the shuttles’ exit ramp to a hole in the hull. The air shimmered between them and the rest of the landing bay. Miranda squinted her eyes and reached out to try to get a better view through it. Shock ran down her arm.
“Ouch,” she said. The word left her mouth before she thought better of it.
“Force field; be careful, little miss,” Cash said.
Miranda huffed. Ignoring whatever lay on the other side of the force field, she pushed past the chuckling Ironside and Cash, catching up with the pilot. At least he hadn’t made fun of her yet.
Imperial Edge Page 7