As Typhin asked, I follow him, and we walk through the hallways, heading… somewhere, I think? We’re going in a completely different direction than the one we came from, so I’m not sure where-,

“Whoa! Sir, what’s that thing??”

Right before us, walking and rolling down the corridor, are two robots. One is shaped like a black cylinder on wheeled legs, while the other is just… A guy? I must have seen wrong, that’s no robot. Just a guy in a suit. Kind of weird helmet though, what’s up with that mouth thing?

“Ignore the droids, Mort. They are mere servants. Though, we do have orders to issue them, so I suppose a short moment may be given. Droids?”

The human-in-the-suit stops in his rigid movement, his oval, shiny head swivelling weirdly to face Typhin. “Good afternoon, sir. How may I be of assistance? I am PT-051, currently acting as inventory droid on this vessel. You must be Commander Petrov Typhin, code PRY-99. A pleasure meeting you, sir.”

Aha! It is just a man in a suit! Wait, no, he said himself he was a droid. That’s-, uh, okay, hang on, I’m confused.

The little cylinder-shaped droid beside him, only a head shorter than I am and black in colour, pipes up with a few strange beeps and slurring bloops. Uhuh. Uhuh. Beep-beep-boop, you say? Very interesting.

“R4-E5, is it? I see you’re both very well-updated on the situation. Make sure to treat our guest with every respect you can find in your code,” Typhin says, jerking a thumb in my direction.

“Of course.” And for the first time since I stepped on the ship, someone turns to me, and just asks, “What would you like to be called, sir?”

Uh? Uh. Holy heck. Someone just asked my name. Okay, okay, play it cool! Take it easy! “Uh, Mort is fine!”

The man-droid(?) leans back out and gives a stale nod. The little droid next to him gives a few weird bleeps that might mean something but I really can’t tell. A few seconds pass in silence as the man-droid and Typhin and the small droid all stare at me.

“He asked you whether you’ll need any specific accommodations or not, Mort,” Typhin says, translating from droid to human in an instant.

“It can talk? Oh, uh, no, that’s fine, I’m okay. Thank you?”

The droid bleeps a few times, the man-droid excuses himself, and off they are. That was-, uh, odd? Nice for someone other than Typhin and Atte to actually speak to me, but I’m really more confused than anything. Droids. One of them was clearly a robot or something, but that other guy… He called himself a droid, but he spoke like a man and looked like a man, so… What exactly is he, then?

“You seem conflicted, Mort. Never seen a droid before, have you?”

“Never, sir.”

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“I hadn’t either, the first ten years of my life. On Lothal, they were much more common than on my homeworld. Don’t worry, you’ll grow to accept their… quirks. One word of advice though: try not to treat them like humans, despite how they may seem. If anybody else sees you uncertain about them, they’ll find you untrustworthy. Capable of hiding rebellious thoughts.” His words seem to come from experience, though I don’t really understand why treating these droid people like humans might be wrong? They seem pretty nice so far…

...Oh, we’ve arrived!

Typhin stops right outside a locked door, and after putting one of his code cylinders in a hole next to the closed door, it slides open and he steps inside. I follow.

“I’m lucky they had an empty guest room,” Typhin says hollowly, moving about the room to take in the few details. There are a few cupboards and wardrobes along the walls, as well as a bed. The middle of the room holds what seems like a strange, complex table that isn’t quite a table. Whatever it is, I can’t put anything on it, that’s for sure. The only other detail would be one of few windows not in the cockpit, showing how the ship is leaving the atmosphere and heading into the asteroid field.

Typhin shuts the door behind us. “Tell me, Mort. What are you?”

I turn away from the window to see him standing by the door, arms behind his back. “How do you mean? I’ve told you. I’m a man.”

He waves his hand dismissivly. “I understand you mean that and I accept your sentience. Your emotion. Though, tell me, before I came along, what life did you lead? Have you always spoken basic, have you always been that large? I need to understand you in order to be able to explain your use to the Empire.”

“Uh. I… Sure, sir. I’ll try.”

And in a split second before I speak, I decide to not mention my life before this. It isn’t important. I’m not on Earth anymore, I’m not human anymore. At least, not completely.

But I do speak about how small I was at first. That I couldn’t see, couldn’t move. And then I sprouted arms and hands and I grew larger to survive, eating anything that came my way in order to live for just a few hours longer. And he watches me, and his eyes are hard, but there’s a glint of understanding in his gaze. A part of him that recognizes my struggle. “-Only lately have I been strong enough to avoid most deaths. Before, I almost died often.”

“...I see.” There’s a light in his eyes; a loyal, clever light. “The more you eat, the larger you grow, the stronger you become?”

I nod. “Yes, sir.”

“...Then, while we travel, as we make our way to the Outbound Flight, I want you to continue eating this asteroid belt. You can do that, can you not?” he asks, and there’s something in his voice that makes me hesitate just a little. Something callous in his loyalty. Something hungry for power.

“I think I could, yes.” I look at the bed. “May I sit down while I try, sir?”

“By all means.”

In a moment or so, I’m sitting on the bed, my eyes closed and my mind split. One part is out in space, spread wide, returning to the mindless focus of eating, of consuming everything it holds. See rock, grab rock, eat rock. Over and over and over again, a thousand tentacles all moving in tandem with each other, and at that very same time, as my body falls back into the drone of movement and eating and nothing else, I slowly return my consciousness back to my main body. Back to the here and now.

I open my eyes. In the back of my head, I see through hundreds of eyes, all eating at once, but in the here and now, in Typhin’s private quarters, I’m looking at him.

“It’s possible, sir.”

A strange smile finds its way onto his face like a large centipede. “Good. I want you to continue that. Become larger, stronger. One day, it will pay off. That I swear to you.”

“Uh. Okay?” That’s-, a kind of weird way to say it, but oka-,

I fly off the bed in a moment and smash into the wall on the other side of the room, and then something shifts again and I tumble down on the floor, my eyes rolling like billiard balls in my head while I only barely notice how Typhin’s shouting something about that we’re in the field now, but until I fly off the floor and crash into the inside of the window, I’m not really able to understand that the pilots are currently in the middle of veering out of the way of several impressive big asteroids, narrowly escaping death every time.

Okay, okay, okay, yeah, uh, I never had to avoid asteroids like this-, well, I did once, but that was long ago!

Jesus-, how are we-,

The ship veers to the right again, throwing me away from the window and onto the bed, and I’m pretty sure that if I had any bones, they’d all be broken by now. W-, wait. How’s Typhin doing?!

I drag my face off of the bed, starting at where Typhin was last, and, yup, he’s still there, holding onto the wall like a champ. Doing fine. Wow. I feel like an inexperienced sailor on a real ship filled with veteran sailors. I’m glad he’s okay though, if we crash, I don’t think I’ll be able to save everyone…

The ship veers another way again, but by grabbing hard onto the side of the bed (apparently it’s stuck to the floor, thankfully) I’m able to stay in one place.

“We’ll be out of this rough patch soon, Mort.”

And for some reason, I trust him. And for some reason, he’s right.