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Droids.

It was fucking clever of him. Get droids to do it.

Though the galaxy is used to the image of droids as quirky, almost like housepets, the reality that most people live with is that most droids are just machines. They perform their programmed tasks, and only the needlessly complex or under-occupied ever develope enough abnormal behaviour to become the loveable goofs or ruthless villains of Holo-dramas.

The possibility had always been there, of course. Droids were used to carry out all sorts of unpleasent work because a well-built droid would do it without complaint or hesitation. They don't raise suspiscion, they can appear and disappear without questions, and they can even create a semblance of normalcy that can be deactivated and packed away at the end of the day.

J-1 had occasionally been drawn into discussions about wether machines had souls. J-6, like most Azguards, argued that a soul is an etheral thing that can form around a sufficiently complex intelligence regardless of its' origin, meaning that even a toaster with enough upgrades could have a soul. J-5, who took machines apart for a living, had a more practical viewpoint - crack open any droid's behaviour core, regardless of their supposed personality, flip a few switches, and you have a brand new 'person'.

Despite his indifference to the argument and his own hardened heart, he couldn't help but wonder why. Why hadn't their gears have frozen rather than carry out those orders? Why hadn't their memory banks erased themselves or their motivators burst into flame? If they had a soul, why had it not rebelled rather than obey those commands?




"We have to move!" Jian shouted, pulling a stumbling gangster back on his feet before shoving him towards the train station. "They'll be coming down on us any minute now! Just leave the files, we'll torch the place on our way out!"

As she ran, young men with Republic tattoes and bandanas running the other way, she was compelled to pause at the entrance to Xarrin's scarred command center. Inside Xarrin sat, looking at his dim holographic display table, consumed in silence.

"Come on, sir! We've got to get out of here! Cops left five minutes ago, if we don't get to-"

Xarrin shushed her, the gesture seeming unusually calm from the usually embittered man. After a few more minutes of reading, he seemed satisfied.

He looked up and around at the decaying command center, most of the screens having burned out. Xarrin tapped a few of the buttons on the table to see if they still worked, but got no response. He smiled, finally turning to Jian. "Let's go. It's a long fucking walk to the undercity."

He took a bottle of something probably originally meant for industrial use, and knocked back a swig. It wasn't his thing, but he took whatever vices came his way these days. Lighting the end of a sodden rag, he shoved the rag into the bottle and threw it over his shoulder. In a minute, the screens began shattering and ancient exposed wiring burst and sparked. Where an ancient war had failed, half a bottle of cheap gin and a smouldering cigarra had succceeded.

The two of them walked out on to Lost station, where the train and their gang awaited only their boarding. Xarrin stopped and looked back at their former lair. It was already smoking. Hopefully, by the time the police arrived some massive structural failure would bring down the whole thing. They were close to the ground, but still, it might take out some regressed tribe who've never seen the sun. Such is life on Coruscant - go far enough down, and it's somebody else's problem. Ground is relative.

"We gave it a good run," he muttered, which soon gave way to a few chuckles. "Fuck, what am I saying? What did we ever do?"

Jian grabbed him by the arm, yanking him on to the train. Xarrin started laughing again, lighting a fresh cigarra. "Let's get moving, conductor. Next stop, some concealing shadows."

The train ground to life, shrieking metal on metal before finally moving down the tracks. Then it was merely a matter of diving yet deeper into the underbelly of the galaxy's biggest city.



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It made sense.

The droids could make the medical facility run, could disguise its' purpose easily. After all, if it was a medical facility, why not employ droids? They couldn't catch any virus the average patient could give them. It also lended a semblance of authenticity to the whole thing, so that no one would realize what was going on - no, not 'until it was too late'. No one would ever know, at any point. Not the pilots, not the guards, not the Empire. All those who had masterminded the plot could die and yet their work would carry on without them, totally unknown.

The location, too, was brilliance. After all, all anyone knew was that they had to leave the planet for medical reasons, so a stop at a hospital would make sense. One on an uninhabited planet would keep anyone from asking questions or noticing anything they shouldn't. There were a few complicating factors, of course - they probably had to rotate the transport pilots frequently, so they didn't realize the number of people they were shipping to the same medical center was far too vast.

As J-1 and his team looked on from the bridge of their stealth intruder The Watcher as the vast 'terraforming equipment' warmed up. They were impressive, like massive turbines. Unless you had a degree in terraforming engineering, you probably couldn't tell that the huge machines had little to do with the burning planet below and everything to do with the shiploads of 'aliens' arriving in the medical center above.

As the six watched, J-1 clutched his own burns, feeling the scratchy pain just underneath the fresh dressings.



Regrad sat in his office, a relatively spartan accomodation near the top of the Coalition Command tower, itself a sliver of steel on a mountaintop looking out at the capital city of Azguard, the heart of the Coalition. Through the thrumming offices below him passed the bulk of the business for his nation - treaties were ratified, deals were struck, contracts were made, orders were given, and most of all, paperwork was filled in.

It had been a long time since Regrad had recieved anything of note from the CIB. What with the wars and crisis consuming the Coalition there was simply no room for intelligence - an observation that would draw mocking cries from amateur comedians the galaxy over.

This day was special, however, as between the latest stats on the Eastern disaster and the situation in Onyxia, Regrad found one sheet stamped by the office of the Coalition Intelligence Bureau. His intelligence chief Ferguson Mumphs had written the message himself. Intrigued, Regrad picked up the report.

He read it. Slowly, to make sure he understood it. Once he was certain, he calmly put the report down, rested his chin on his hands, and started to think about what to do with this information.

Of course, it was useless to the Empire - their citizens would never believe it, for one, and even if they would there was no way to spread this information. It might make a good news piece for his own people, an atrocity worth rallying around, but that seemed somehow... insufficient, for the work, blood and toil that had gone into acquiring the information. Not to mention turning such a massive truth into nothing more than a PR point-game was repulsive to him.

Was it any use to him? It served to confirm what he had always 'known', true enough, but then he already hated the Empire. What was one more reason? Could he do anything about it? Stopping the Empire was simply beyond the Coalition, and any action taken against the currently known site would only result in a new one being established elsewhere where they couldn't find it.

Regrad felt a mounting horror at what he had become - at the decisions he was forced to make, the compromises needed to survive. In frustration, he balled up the report and threw it into the waste receptacle at the end of his desk.

A moment of dark enlightenment struck when he realized that this was how the original decision to dispose of these people had been made. A sterile environment behind closed doors, divorced from the real world, where lives and people were but words and rhetoric, points and tokens, numbers and statistics. Regrad felt a chill pass through his spine, and he grabbed the report from the receptacle, storming out of his office.

"Viryn! Yolem!" he shouted, striding out into the open as office workers and officials gave him puzzled looks. "Gather everyone. Everyone! I want you all to hear this..."



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The medical center in orbit was beautiful and impractically huge. It was even painted white with big colourful markers on it, international symbols to tell would-be marauders that this was a place of healing, not of war. The facade was perfect, really.

Even as they watched the turbines slowly spinning, picking up energy and venting heat into the stratosphere, the medical center in orbit began to deploy a steady stream of droid-flown shuttles. They flew in unnaturally straight formations, taking their practiced route with precision. Each passed into a side landing-bay of the huge machine, then after a few minutes, passed out the other side, flying just a little faster, and probably just a little lighter.

Six pairs of eyes, perhaps the only eyes for lightyears that were open, watched as the turbines picked up speed. Between the six agents there was an understanding of what was going on, of what was about to happen, yet none spoke. There was nothing to say, only to watch.

The turbines spun faster and faster, until finally the heat and exhaust they produced spilled forth in a noxious haze. Dust billowed outwards in a surprisingly vast cloud, which began expanding quickly towards them.

"If the dust touches the ship," J-4 croaked through a strained voice. "The ship's outline will be revealed. They'll spot us."

J-2 nodded mutely, pulling back on The Watcher's controls and causing their ship to fly away from the planet. Tendrils of the dustcloud reached up after them, a grasping hand of it seemingly floating upwards without end before finally dissipating beneath them.

"We could..." murmured J-5. "I mean, the station's probably unshielded. We might be able to-"

"No," J-1 stated. "Home. Fast."

The Watcher sped away, as if no matter how fast they flew and no matter how much of the void was between them, they would never be far enough from that spot. Shortly after they left, the turbines stopped spinning, having blown all of the dust clear of their vents. There they cooled, awaiting their next load.



J-5 had had a gift for his squad leader, mined from the stolen data. It had been an incredibly unlikely datagrab, but during his downloads for "Grewal" he'd grabbed most of the G section of 'recently deceased/eliminated personnel'. It'd still taken a long time to sort through, but they'd needed something to do on the flight back anyways.

J-1 opened the door to his quarters, which seemed somehow to be untouched since his last stay onboard.

Even more unusually, Gale was there, looking as if she'd hardly moved.

Of course she had. He'd learned how to appraise people, and she showed no signs of sedentry living. He'd been away for months, if she hadn't moved in all that time he would have noticed. The room, too, had certainly been cleaned, the bed made, even the furniture moved.

Yet despite this, it felt like stepping back in time. Gale looked at him with her terrible eyes, not accusing yet somehow probing. After a few moments of awkwardness, J-1 walked over and sat with her.

What now? It felt like their unfinished conversation had never ended, that he was back right where he had started - which, in a way, he was.

Well, not quite. J-1 reached into his pocket and took out a bottle of pills.

"Your file," he mumbled. "Said you needed them to treat a... 'debilitating mental condition.'"

Her face suddenly showed a faint sign of remembrance, and she grabbed the bottle. Without further prompting, she swallowed two of the little red pills and slammed the bottle down.

Slowly, her vision seemed to come into focus a little more. She still said nothing, but when she turned to look at J-1, there was an awareness there that there hadn't been before. She stared expectantly.

"I... My name's Steve," he said.

"I know," said Gale, who didn't break eye contact. Did she remember him from when he'd taken her in after the battle? Or did she remember the battle itself? Whatever she was thinking, Gale didn't let it show.

Steve tried to say something. Tried to formulate a sentance - anything, to prove he could still communicate. Could still interact. Was still human.

A ringing started up from his belt. He both cursed and blessed the comm call that spared him from facing his own problem. "J-1 here."

"Steve? This is Mumphs. Great job on that last mission."

"Thank you, sir." It wasn't much, but then again, it rarely was.

"I'm sorry to have to tell you this so soon, but, well, the Prime Minister was very interested in the info you brought back. He's authorized another mission with new and broader goals. Your departure time is-"

Steve hurled the comm to the ground, stomping on it with the heel of his boot. "Fuck! Off! Already!" He shouted, his face contorted with rage.

Energy expended, he fell back down on to his bed and sighed. Gale hadn't even flinched. After a few more moments of silence, she whispered "Take me with you."

Steve slowly pulled his head back up, his brow furrowed in confusion. "What?"

"Take me with you," she repeated, her face betraying no hint of emotion or explination.

"We barely know each other," said J-1, who felt a mounting anxiety. "Do you even know where I'm going?"

"Doesn't matter," Gale said. "Take me with you."

She was insane. Well, at least, that was what the pills were supposed to be for. Then again, all things considered Steve was starting to feel a little mad as well. "Sure, why not?" he replied, pulling a cigarra from his pocket and lighting it. "I've got a bad feeling about this, but at least I won't be alone."