***
Jane knew that if she wanted to get more information out of the droid, she had to act as soon as possible because it was scheduled for a memory wipe. When she saw it outside of the medbay and nobody else was watching there was a golden opportunity..
So she snatched the droid and jumped with it on a speeder. She didn’t expect the droid to alarm the troops via the commlink. It was also sending the coordinates of them to the base every few minutes. She scrambled the tracking device of the droid and drove away into the desert as far as possible, listening to the commlink feeling very tense and scared. She was scared that they would start hunting her and then maybe even kill her, like they had done with that other cadet about a week ago.. because he had been acting weird. She was stealing Imperial property now, as an Imperial cadet. She had been acting a bit weird lately too..
She didn’t want to die. But not she had the droid with her and it hadn’t told her name yet on the comm. In the desert she ordered it to dismount the speeder and to stop sending those messages to the Garrison.
“You have stolen Imperial property. You are to remain stationary and wait for the troops.”, it answered with a clinical voice.
After listening to the commlink Jane smiled.. it seemed that at the exact time of her stealing Nora.. some bomb had exploded in the Mos Entha medical centre and all the troops were busy with that.
“Why did you call me Salmia Lanark.. why did you call me juvenile? What wounds do I have, you asked me about my wounds but I don’t know of any wounds.”, Jane asked it, hurried.
It was difficult to extract the right information out of it as it didn’t seem to understand most of the questions.. well the way she asked them. So she had to ask the same question sometimes about six times, every time phrased differently. After a while it said to her that she had the same genetic structure as a woman called ‘Salmia Lanark’ and that this Salmia had been a slave in the Mos Entha medcentre.
“A slave? From who?”, Jane asked.. then it was turned off.
“@#$%.” She dragged the droid back onto the speeder and drove away again for a few hundred meters, just to be sure that nobody would find them.
She grabbed it and shook it, tampered with it.. and finally it got turned on again.
“You told me that Salmia Lanark was a slave.. who was her owner.. the medcentre?”, she asked it again.
“The Mos Entha Imperial Garrison.”, the droid replied.
Then Jane kinda remembered.. she had been Salmia Lanark!
She gulped and felt a lot of sadness. Had she really been a slave from the Garrison? She couldn’t recall a thing but they had to go back to base… their attention was directing towards the droid theft now.
She hacked into it and reprogrammed it so that it would tell the Garrison that thugs had stolen the droid and that Jane had chased them to get it back. It had told her that dr. Roseward was the only one that actually knew who had been the droid thief. She hoped that the doctor hadn’t contacted Imperial command yet.. but she had to take the risk.
She contacted Imperial command with Nora’s comm and buried her own comm.. she ‘had lost the comm during the chase, therefore she hadn’t been able to contact the Garrison’. A trooper was sent to get her, it was RK-438, Andy. He brought her back to base, acting as usual, like Jane herself. She was bruised and scarred because she had deliberately fought with some kreetles and worrts, to make the story as probable as possible. In the base she saw dr. Roseward, she stared in her eyes. She wanted to talk with the doctor but where.. inside the medcentre there were camera’s. Outside there were troopers. When she walked outside she had to get back to duty immediately, the trooper in charge acted harsh to her.. but she just got back the droid that was worth 13 million credits.. completely on herself! With a sigh she got back to the barracks and put on her uniform, after having sent a short encrypted and untraceable message to dr. Roseward.
>>>>>#$@#%@
Dear Dr. Roseward
to make it short.. I know that
your droid has told you that I stole it instead of the thugs. I know that you
will turn me into Imperial command, but maybe there can be another solution to
this 'problem'. I'd like to talk with you in private,
maybe we can make some deal. Something that we both could profit from..
Doe<<<<<<<<#$#%
In the city they did a usual patrol.. there was this human female slave.. it didn’t have any ID with it and also no owner, so it got arrested and taken to the base. It was terrified and when Jane escorted it to a cell she started feeling confused and sad and also.. scared. She watched how the other troopers looked at the slave, like it was something to buy, to possess. Jarome wanted to buy it if it wouldn’t have an owner.
“When we find no owner it is hereby Imperial property now.”
Imperial property..
Jane shuddered slightly and walked away as she was dismissed from her duty. So probably she had been here as a slave too, but why and when.. what had happened?
Back in the dormitory she felt terrified, biting her lip but acting as casual as possible as camera’s were following every move that she was making.
Then a trooper walked in and after it had removed it’s helmet it appeared to be Andy. She stared at him.. when he got her in the desert to take her and the droid back to base.. he was nothing but a droid, anonymous, emotionless. She couldn’t even recognize her boyfriend, not unless she was a trooper herself.
“Are you alright?”, he asked her.
She nodded.
“You look a bit upset, are you really alright?”, he repeated.
“Yes!”, she answered, a bit irritated.
“Euh ok..”, he said quietly, and put his arms around her carefully.
She showed a faint smile, he kissed her on the cheek tenderly.
“Goodnight.”, he said quietly.
“Goodnight.”, she gave him also a kiss and then undressed to get asleep.
