by Ben Acker
“This is my brother, Dec,” AG-90 said, “who I told you about.”
“Hi,” Mattis said.
Dec didn’t get up, only smirked. Mattis would soon learn that Dec’s smirk was pretty much a permanent fixture.
“This is what you brought me?” Dec said. “He doesn’t look like he could guard against a baby Gungan.”
“What’s with you guys and Gungans?” Mattis said, almost to himself.
“You a Gungan?” Dec asked.
“Obviously not,” Mattis replied.
“Then don’t worry about it.” Dec slid to a sitting position on the bunk and held out his hand. “Dec Hansen,” he said.
“Mattis Banz.”
“Find your rack and stow your sack, Banz,” Dec told him, indicating he should choose a room with an empty bed and leave his bag there. “We’re going on a mission.”
Dec led them out behind the barracks, between a series of makeshift buildings. The entire Resistance base had a haphazard feel, like it had been cobbled together out of urgency and necessity. Like General Organa and her senior advisers knew something was happening soon, something they should prevent, so they hurried to a planet on the Outer Rim where they couldn’t be found and quickly erected the base.
Mattis was worried about sneaking around, but he liked AG-90, and he wanted to like Dec, too. But what was this “mission” they were going on? Dec wasn’t slowing down to explain, and he didn’t stop talking long enough for Mattis to ask.
“Aygee’s a good guy, and he’s got a radar about who the other good people are, too,” Dec said.
“I don’t have an actual radar to detect good people,” AG-90 clarified.
“I just mean Banz is probably good people. He knows there’s no actual radar for that, Aygee,” Dec said. Then, to Mattis, “My brother can be literal sometimes. Comes with the chrome plating. You ever meet a droid can tell a joke?”
Mattis didn’t answer, but Dec didn’t give him a chance to anyway.
“Aygee can tell jokes,” Dec said. “But I don’t know if he gets them.”
“I get jokes,” AG said without humor. “Don’t forget I’m older. And smarter. And handsomer.”
“Okay, okay. Don’t get defensive.”
They really did act like brothers. Dec and AG teased each other, but it was good-natured. Mattis could sense the affection between them.
“And ain’t no way you’re handsomer than me,” Dec said over his shoulder to AG. “I’m real pretty.”
“I got a better personality though,” AG said. “Can’t argue that. Mattis has known me twenty minutes, and he can see I got a better personality. Right, Mattis?”
Dec didn’t look back at Mattis. “You better not be nodding, Banz,” he said.
Mattis, who’d been nodding, stopped.
AG said, “Dec is just jealous ’cause not only do I have a better personality, but I’m a better pilot.”
“You’re not a pilot,” Dec reminded AG.
“Not yet. But I fly. You fly, Mattis?”
Mattis said that he did, some. He didn’t go into detail about how low to the ground his flying experience had been so far.
“My brother really is the best pilot I ever met,” Dec said. “Some of the long-timers here don’t want a droid piloting for the Resistance. They don’t think droids have the instincts. Being a great pilot—like the ones you hear about in the old stories, Lando Calrissian and them? Or this guy we have now, Poe Dameron?—it’s all instinct. You can’t train it into ’em, and you can’t program it into ’em. But Aygee’s got instinct, because he’s never had his memory wiped.”
“Never?” Mattis was surprised. Wiping a droid’s memory was part of basic maintenance. If you didn’t wipe their memories once in a while, they developed quirks and idiosyncrasies. Which, come to think of it, was pretty much what AG was made of: quirks and idiosyncrasies.
“Never,” Dec said seriously. Mattis had known Dec for only minutes, but he could tell that Dec wasn’t a person who was often serious. Maybe he was only serious about his brother. “Aygee wouldn’t be Aygee if you wiped him.”
“Aw,” AG piped up, “I’d still be a great pilot. Y’see, no matter what other parts of different kinds of droids make me up, I got the heart of an astromech. An R2 unit.”
“Droids have hearts?” asked Mattis.
“Of course. I mean, kind of. Not actually. Just enough,” AG explained.
“You got more heart than me, and I’m all heart,” said Dec.
“And a better personality than you, too,” AG insisted.
“Never.” Dec smirked and hurried into a wide structure that was crammed with control rooms and offices. Dec was brash and confident in the way he swaggered past the periphery of the busy command center in the middle of the structure.
“Heya, Peazy!” he said, smiling and waving at a blue-plated protocol droid.
The droid raised a hand and said “My apologies, Master Dec, but I am too busy even to tell you how busy I am, and yet, I just have. Oh, dear! I have put myself farther behind. I cannot continue speaking to you. I am far too busy. Please discontinue engaging me, won’t you?”
Dec shot her a salute that seemed to relieve her, and then he ducked into a corridor, past a sign that read AUTHORIZED PERSONNEL ONLY.
“This seems like the sort of place we shouldn’t be,” Mattis said.
Dec gave him a half smile. “What makes you say that?”
Mattis pointed to the sign.
Dec laughed and said, “Relax! I’m authorized.” He said it in such a way that Mattis believed him, but only for a moment.
Down at the end of the corridor, two sentry droids as tall as Mattis stood guard.
“Aygee,” Dec said. “Droid-face.”
“I asked you not to call it that.”
“Call what that?” Mattis asked.
The junk droid sighed. He pulled himself upright—AG’s natural posture was a bit of a slouch—and stiffened. He took halting robotic steps into the corridor toward the two sentries.
Quickly, the sentries rolled up to him. Their rectangular eye plates glowed.
“State your business,” they said in unison.
“Oh, dear!” AG replied, sounding nothing like himself at all. “I do believe you are the droids I’m looking for.”
“State your business,” the sentry droids repeated. One wheeled toward him, then back.
“Yes, you are just the droids. Happy day! General Organa wants to see you. I do believe she said something about a commendation!” AG sounded excited for the two sentries.
They swiveled to look at each other and rolled back and forth quickly and happily. “General Organa, you say?” asked one droid. He had a monotone, staticky voice.
“Indeed!” AG replied. When the droids again swiveled to look at each other, AG turned back to where Dec and Mattis hid in a doorway and shook his head. “Come with me.”
One of the droids squealed electronically. AG started off down a connecting corridor, away from Mattis and Dec. The two sentry droids sped after him, making positive beeping noises.
“He’s good at that, huh?” Dec said, laughing. “He hates to do it.”
Mattis could understand why.
Dec stopped about halfway up the corridor at a sealed door. He bent down and removed the black casing from the entry keypad, exposing buttons and wires. “I’m going in here,” he said. “Your job is to watch this door.”
Mattis started to protest. Dec looked up from attaching a few wires, creating a plume of electrical smoke, and shut Mattis down with a shake of his head. “I’m not doing anything wrong.”
“You’re breaking into this room,” Mattis countered.
“Well, sure I am!” Dec said with a wink in his voice. “But it’ll be great. Trust me.” There was something about Dec that told Mattis he was someone to trust. That this wouldn’t be much more than a silly prank.
“Besides,” Dec said. “We’ll never get caught if you watch this here door.” He knocke
d on it twice, softly. “If you see anyone, don’t let them come in here. Just pick Aygee up and throw him at ’em. He’ll be back in a minute.”
“I’m not going to throw Aygee at anyone.”
“Throwing the heaviest object at the problem is lesson number one of combat,” he said happily. Dec flicked a couple more wires together, and the door hissed open. He went inside, then popped his head out. “Oh, yeah, and look out for Sari.”
“Who’s Sari?”
“Trouble. She’s got it out for me. You can’t miss her. She’s a bruiser. Strong as a bantha and ornery as a caged-up Kowakian monkey-lizard. Dumb, though. Strong, angry, and dumb, that’s her. Ain’t a good combination of things to be, Banz.”
“I’ll try to remember that.”
“Try to remember to keep her outta here while I’m in here.”
He hadn’t yet ducked back inside when AG reappeared.
“You lose those trash cans?” Dec asked.
“’Course I did,” AG replied. “You tell him about Sari?”
“’Course I did. Banz will take care of us, won’t you, Banz?”
Mattis nodded. “I’ll be right here.”
With that, Dec popped inside and the door slid closed behind him. Mattis looked at the floor for a little bit, then leaned closer to the door. He didn’t hear anything from inside the room. Mattis stole a glance up at AG, who studied Mattis coolly with his multilensed bug eyes.
“I don’t know what he’s up to,” AG said.
That didn’t make Mattis any less nervous. “Is Dec a troublemaker?”
“Oh-ho, yeah,” AG said with a metallic laugh. “Yes.”
Mattis shifted where he stood; he eyeballed the corridor.
“But if you’re his people, then you won’t get in any trouble at all,” AG said. “Not really.”
“Am I his people?” Mattis asked.
“You’re my people, so close enough.”
They stood together in silence while Mattis thought about how happy that statement made him. He’d never been anyone’s people before.
After another moment, though, the silence started to feel uncomfortable again. Mattis said, “You know Lorica Demaris is here?”
“I’d heard she was coming,” AG said. So AG knew who she was, too. That didn’t surprise Mattis. If they’d heard about her on Durkteel, everyone had heard of Lorica Demaris.
“She was on my transport here,” Mattis said, hoping to impress his new friend.
“She say anything interesting?”
Mattis thought about that. “She was kind of mean, actually.”
For some reason, that made AG-90 laugh. “Aw, she’s probably just nervous,” he said. “Sometimes you humans get ornery when you’re nervous.”
“Or maybe she’s just mean.”
“Or maybe she’s just mean,” AG agreed. “Either way, I like the sound of her—Hey. Look who’s comin’.” AG pointed at the end of the corridor, where a hulking figure had stepped into view. Her head nearly touched the ceiling. She filled the narrow space.
“Sari?” Mattis asked. AG nodded. Mattis froze. If the girl wanted to swat past him and barge into the room where Dec was, Mattis couldn’t do anything about it. She was as big as a wampa.
She didn’t speak until she reached them. AG slipped behind Mattis and prodded him toward her. The girl spoke in an unnatural, low voice. “You shunnin’ be here,” she mumbled.
“We’re…not?” Mattis replied.
The gargantua seemed to consider that. She tipped her dinner-plate-sized face toward the ceiling. Stringy blond hair fell away from her forehead. Then she dropped her head back down to look at them. “Nah,” she said. “You’re here for surely.”
There was something odd about her, a studied brainlessness.
“We were going to leave,” Mattis said. “But my friend here—Do you know—”
“Beebee-Ate, nice to meet you,” AG said, poking his head around Mattis’s shoulder. The girl scrunched up her face. She looked as if she were about to spit, laugh, or cry.
“You’re not Beebee-Ate,” she snarled.
“You sure?” AG asked, then made some beeps and boops.
She snorted. “You’re that Dec Hansen’s robot.”
Then AG snorted. “No! Dec Hansen is my human.”
“Where is he? Tell me in one piece or tell me in pieces. Up ter you.”
Mattis thought quickly. Maybe he could diffuse the situation just by playing nice. “Ha-ha, come on.” He chuckled, clapping her on her enormous forearm. “We’re all on the same team here. Resistance, right?” She looked down at his hand, and he snatched it away.
Faster than he would have thought possible for such a giant, Sari swept her arm through the air and yanked Mattis’s feet out from under him. She held him by the ankle; his head knocked against the floor, hard. The air went out of him. “You tell me where he is,” she insisted.
“Hey—could you—I don’t like this. Please don’t—” was all he could say between breaths.
“Tell me!” the big girl grunted.
“AG? Could you—” Mattis was cut off by the girl’s knocking him against the wall. He was surprised he didn’t go through it.
AG said, “Oh, yeah. Hey, Sari, you don’t wanna do that, do you?”
“What’m I doin’?” the girl asked dumbly.
“This!” Mattis cried. “This, this, this, please stop, please!”
AG shushed Mattis and said, “Man, keep your voice down. You’ll get us in trouble.” Which Mattis thought was an odd thing to say, considering they were already in trouble.
“If you don’t tell me where Dec Hansen is, I’ll crumple you up,” Sari said.
“Please, don’t,” Mattis begged.
“Okay,” she said. Relief flooded Mattis. “Instead, I’ll throw you through that door. Last chance.”
Why did bigger kids keep tossing Mattis around?
She swung him back and forth for momentum. “One,” she said, swinging him away from the door, then back toward it. “The number after one.” Again, back and then forth. “Three—” Even farther back that time, but when she swung him forward again, the door slid open. The hulking girl let Mattis go and he flew a few meters, right into Dec, sending them both tumbling to the ground.
“Watch it, Banz,” Dec said with a sigh, pushing himself upright.
“You do what needed doing, Dec?” Sari asked. Her voice was higher and less thick. What was going on?
“Did it. Thanks, Sari.” Dec was talking to her like she hadn’t just caught them trespassing and who knew what else. What was going on?
“Sari was a real champ,” AG said. “She nearly had me scared as Mattis was!” AG hadn’t been scared? Seriously, what the pfassk was going on?
“What the pfassk is going on?” Mattis shouted.
All three huddled over him, shushing him. Dec reached out and helped Mattis to his feet.
“I’m going to lose it,” Mattis said. “I mean, I’ve been here zero minutes, and I’m off on a secret mission, probably getting in trouble, and that’s not—I’m here to do good! I don’t like being tossed around! I don’t know any of you, and is this”—he motioned to Sari—“person a guard or your friend, or what is happening here? Because I’m going to go completely moonshot if I don’t—if I don’t—You’re smiling?”
Dec leaned against the doorway, smirking at Mattis and letting him run out of steam. “You about done?” he asked.
Mattis shrugged. He didn’t trust any of them anymore, and he wouldn’t give them a millimeter.
“This here’s Sari Nadle. Sari’s our pal.”
“Hi,” Sari said, smiling. Her whole demeanor had changed. Her scrunched-up face, which had seemed so angry before, was open and warm. She smoothed her blond hair across the top of her enormous head and shrugged. “I told Dec I didn’t want to do brute-face, but sometimes it’s the only way.”
“You were great,” AG insisted.
“No, I know I was great. I’m a terrific acto
r. But when you’re me”—she motioned to her enormous muscled body—“you always have to play the tough guy.” She leaned confidentially toward Mattis and said, “I really hate violence.”
“But she’s a pal,” Dec repeated. “And she’s our people.”
“How’d the new guy do?”
AG and Sari held their left hands over their right fists, right thumbs creeping out to point at Mattis.
“Really?” Dec asked, impressed.
“Didn’t peep,” AG told Dec.
“Not once,” Sari said, and nodded approvingly at Mattis.
“Of course I didn’t,” Mattis said defensively. “What are you doing with your hands there?”
“It’s a Quaggian gesture. Doesn’t it look like a turtle head poking out of a shell?” asked Sari.
“It means ‘it’s great’ or ‘something’s great.’ In this instance, it means you’re great,” AG explained.
“He’s a right guy, Dec,” Sari added.
Dec took in Mattis. “Aw, he was probably too scared of you to say anything.”
“He said plenty. He was really polite about it. Just nothing about you. Wouldn’t budge.” Sari laughed.
Mattis told all of them, “I don’t tattle.”
AG tried to settle Mattis down. “Dec’s just being funny.”
“That’s not funny,” Mattis said seriously to AG. He repeated it to the others. “That’s not funny.”
“Sure it was, Banz, or else why am I laughing?” Dec chuckled and started into the hallway.
Mattis couldn’t believe Dec was just walking away, like putting Mattis through that fear and humiliation was the sort of thing he did all the time. He looked at AG, who just raised his hands as if to say, That’s my brother!
Dec took maybe a dozen steps down the corridor by himself, then turned and came back. “Look,” he said, addressing all of them. “You guys were perfect. We were having a little fun with you, Banz, and you didn’t embarrass yourself or rat me out. Now I know I can trust you.”
Mattis responded by making a Quaggian hand turtle.
Dec got serious. “Hey, don’t use that sarcastically. What I’m saying here is that you’re our kind of guy.” He tapped a couple of times on AG’s chest plates. “Cheer up, pals. We got away with it!”