Episode X Dark Hunter

The Best Laid Plans

Multiple floor levels later, and one less fuel cell (three cells were left), Videsse found herself at the mechanic and engineer level. Her left leg burned as if on fire, her brain throbbed, and sweat permeated her synthetic under armor and tunic. The withdrawal that had started that morning continued to wax within her. Even so, remarkably, she pushed to concentrate through these distractions.

This level was brightly lit, in contrast with the others, making the vapor lines of her cloak more visible, and therefore Videsse became more prudent with her movements. The acolytes on this level were not clad in the dark robes she had seen on the worship levels and many donned blasters at their sides. They wore obvious work clothes; vests with pockets, and tight-fitting, organic shirts, and leggings; made from the hair of the lago creatures she had seen outside of Adascopolis. Their orange faces were uncovered and their white-haired heads unhooded. Many were female, but more were male, and each appeared to have a designated job which made the level busy, but not crowded. Hence, Videsse dodged walking acolytes every minute or two, as she ducked into recesses and hallways.

The acolytes worked on droids, ships, storage facilities, holo stations, and anything else that could be maintained. They were a diligent people and had a severe devotion for service to the whole. It was a community; a family devoted. This was true of most Arkanians in whatever they found fellowship over; only here, their common thread was devotion to their supposed Dark Master, the one Nolan had said was coming. They spoke to each other in unemotional tones, and occasionally one would help another. To Videsse it seemed almost unnatural, and yet it was completely natural. Videsse cringed.

It was not far, yet it was long before Videsse found herself at a ship hangar, attached to one of the landing platforms she had seen on her initial approach with Slave-1. Two Needle-class snubs were in stages of repair filled the hangar. A few droids and one Arkanian diligently worked on each ship, sparks raining from both like white cascades as droids soldered above. The burning metal fumes permeated the air and singed the nostrils.

Beyond the ships on the far wall were six droid docking stations, where three droids slept and recharged. One of them was a PZ droid, grey, carbon-scarred, and dented. The same grey, carbon-scarred, dented plating of Terrah's droid, PZ-85. Videsse shook her head and bit her lip when seeing him across from her. She wanted to run to him, turn him on, and remember with him the things that she had been trying to forget; the great paradox of our heroine.

What else could she have felt at that moment? She would never admit to you or me. We could assume there was regret, hope, guilt, fear, and possibly more, if we were to assume she was like you and I. But even if her cloak was not activated, we would only observe a stone statue, blue-lit unliving eyes, and an armored form, incapable of displaying emotion. Videsse's heart was safely hidden in cloak and armor, and smoke when needed, and even whiskey up until forty-eight hours ago. She was well trained, and Boba might have shown his pride in her if he had not been hidden behind his own screens in life; some that had been removed in the end, and others that were never discarded. Even now he still hides behind the adamant veil of death.

What was our heroine thinking as she stared at the droid, twenty meters away, the Needle-class ships her only obstacle? Would she defend her foolhardy decision to find the droid? Would she explain that she was well aware of her current disability, physically and mentally? That though she knew she could not hope to aim a blaster with a steady hand, nor stare down its sight with her blurry and hallucinating vision, nor run on her stabbing leg; that even through these, she had a plan. Would she explain that she knew it was stupid for her to try and save PZ-85, and even that plan was clouded with the lack of whiskey and a colossal headache?

Yes, she knew all these things, but she also knew something else. PZ-85 was no ordinary protocol droid. His protocol programming had been intentionally removed by Boba Fett and replaced with assault programming. He was deadly with a weapon if only one could be given to him and his restraining bolt removed. Was that the plan, Videsse? Of course, it was; to hide in cloak and shadow, to rescue her droid, and together detonate and shoot their way out.