STAR WARS: LEGACY

the tragic tale of M7-D9

Since the day I was born my father said I was meant for great things. He told me I was special and stood out from his other children, said that I could do things they couldn't. Of course, I couldn't reply. I couldn't speak. I was only young.

My father was a good man and a gifted mechanic. Every day he came home from work with grease on his forehead and some money in his pocket. He'd show me the credits as I gave him the dinner I cooked and make me count them with my ice cold fingers.

"These will be your life line out of here M," he'd tell me, "you won't suffer in this place for much longer. The republic will have need for you."

The republic. A strong, fair government supported by the all-powerful Jedi council. How could something so just, so loved, ever be destroyed? What enemy could tear them down? The answer : one of their own.

I still remember the night that Palpatine seized power. I remember the blaring neon lights of Courascant spreading the news like wildfire. The Jedi were dead and the republic had become an Empire. To this day, I am still in awe of Palpatines slimy ability to gain dominance through manipulation of Trade laws. No one saw it coming. Not even my father: the smartest man I knew.

He died six months later.

We'd barely just been getting by. He'd work in the shop and I'd hold up the counter. We'd get odd looks and words of warning every day.

"Hold on to that, " they'd tell my father, "the Empire will seize it, given half a chance."

My father would look at me and say: "I won't let them."

And he was right, the Empire didn't get me. They got him.

Supposedly, there was a robbery at the shop. I wouldn't know because I was at home, charging my batteries, tightening my screws. But, when I asked my father's friends, they said the empire killed him. They said that he was murdered by a Delta squad. I wouldn't learn why until I met Lando Calrisian.

Once my father was killed, his house was seized by the Empire and put up for sale at auction, along with all his property. I counted as part of the latter. It seemed that the stormtroopers who seized me (as well as the pots, pans and spare parts) didn't have the capacity to understand the special bond me and my father had shared. All they saw was a linguist worth at least 400 credits.

For those of you who have not been to a back alley auction house on the lower levels of Courascant, let me tell you that it was not pleasant. I couldn't process half the words I was hearing or sights I was seeing. I was an innocent piece of code in an ocean of malware.

The auctioneer was a plump Rodian with sweaty green skin. He wore a silk mumu (look it up on the Imperial databases) and tattered slippers. His pockets bulged with equal amounts of genuine and counterfeit credits. However, what I remember the most was the unsettling scraping of his voice and the glaring eyes of the unsavoury characters in front of me.

"Here we have a beautiful linguist in mint condition," boomed the auctioneer, "worth over 1000 credits" -I wasn't - "let's start the bidding off at 500."

Before I knew it I was at 1200 credits, far more than I was worth. Why would people pay that much? This was the lower levels of Courascant. The people there should be poor! And then I remembered that this was a back alley auction and all the bidders were thieves. The money meant nothing because it wasn't even theirs.

"1300."

A voice broke through the crowd. It belonged to a black man wearing a blue cloak. His hair was curly and medium length. A moustache sprouted from his upper lip. His name was Lando Calrisian and next to him stood one man and one Wookie.