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Droid World
by
Rick "Minuteman" Morrissey


PART ONE

Minuteman awoke lying on his back, half submerged in a pile of junk. He moved his fingers and felt a spring's coil. Discarded transistors and circuit boards slid aside as he moved his arms. He opened his eyes to find a motley bunch of glowing eyes staring down at him. No they weren't Jawas, the smell wasn't so bad. He propped himself up onto his elbows and marveled at the variety of droids that were watching him. As he rose up, all of the droids took a step back. The small room was filled to near capacity with droids, and all of their optical sensors were on him.

"It lives!" came the jubilous cry from a mako-droid. It was an older design; short and rotund sporting a dark green paint job.

"Yeah I'm alive, where am I? Why am I here? Who are you?" Minuteman almost overloaded the semantic circuits of the mako-droid. It obviously wasn't designed to handle so many questions at once, but Minuteman felt that he was justified in needing to know the answers to all of them.

"Where to start?.. where to start?..." the mako-droid muttered. The other droids, feeling that an important discussion was about to start, moved back in a step and put their audio receptors on full. "First let me introduce myself," the mako-droid started, "I am N0-ME2, and this is..." N0-ME2 stopped as he was interrupted by another droid who had just entered the room.

"Hi all!" The other droids looked at the new comer, a binary servo droid- very common and very uninteresting. Most were looking a tad annoyed, the conversation was just getting somewhere. "I will be leaving for a while." With that the BS droid who had just entered the room- left.

Minuteman found this droid's interruption annoying, and completely pointless. In fact, no one was really interested in the personal status of that droid. He almost got the BS droid out of his mind but the thing came back.

"I will be gone for two hours just in case anybody needs me." The droid was gone almost as fast as it had come.

Was it the same droid? Minuteman couldn't tell. He didn't care, he had to find out more about his situation. "Tell me, where am I?"

"We call this place 'Droidworld'." the mako-droid answered after a brief pause, he had to realign his cogceptors to get back on the subject at hand.

Minuteman wasn't very satisfied with this answer. Knowing what these droids called this place didn't tell him much. "What is this place?"

N0-ME2 slouched a bit and tilted his round head. If a droid could reminisce, N0-ME2 was doing just that. "This place was once a beautiful paradise built especially for us. It seems a long time ago that once we had a thriving community, but it wasn't meant to last. It all happened when..*" the mako droid was cut off again.

"Listen this is Important!!" a crimson droid resembling a broadchested floor lamp burst through the doorway. The urgency of his tone had enraptured his captive audience. "Well, I had to get you to listen up. I'm compiling a list of issue dates for the pneumonic device overlay chips installed in your servos, OK, give me the info!"

Some of the droids gave the requested information to the floor lamp droid. Most turned around and forgot about him. Minuteman gave a frustrated sigh and N0-ME2 started twitching. Nevertheless, the mako-droid continued its story.

"We were once a thriving community until the dark times came upon us. No one is sure how or when it actually started, but now we are in need of help."

"Fire!" the droids all turned and got ready their anti-fire devices. Compressed foam guns, extinguishers and de-oxidizers were drawn, and they looked to the source of the dire cry. "Heh heh, me again, just reminding you that I'm compiling a list of issue dates for the pneumonic device overlay chips installed in your servos, OK, give me the info." The floor-lamp droid was back and was perkily trying to put together its list.

Two or three droids helped the floor lamp droid with its list. The rest were getting very mad, but had no desire to do anything about it. Minuteman was beginning to 'feel' the problem N0-ME2 was referring to, but he couldn't quite put his finger on it. "N0-ME2, why am I here?" He was about to add a follow up question, but remembered that the droid had had difficulty with multiple semantic processing.

N0-ME2 would not even get a chance to answer. "I am upset!" came the voice from the doorway. A MO-P droid entered and gave the crowd the results of its poorly conducted self-diagnostic test.

Another droid stood up as if in response and declared "I am angry!"

A third droid who didn't even bother to get up jumped in "I am depressed!"

Poor N0-ME2 was on the brink. He could not deal with all of these frivolous interruptions. "Please fellow mechanicals... we are discussing an important matter!" the mako-droid chirped loudly. Smoke could be seen rising from its cranial creases. "Forgive me X-Wing pilot, I apologize for the interruptions. I would appreciate if all would help me in discouraging these sorts of interruptions".

"You don't know my name, do you?" Minuteman asked of N0-ME2. "My name is Rick, but my friends call me Minuteman."

N0-ME2 gave Minuteman a puzzled look.

"I *think* you can call me Minuteman." Green Eleven winked at the mako-droid, still unsure of how much trust he could risk with these droids.

"Very well Minuteman, here is our situation..*"

"Hi All! I'm back early!" The BS droid was back. "Just thought I'd let you know, would someone fill me in on what I missed?"

"Stop it!" The exasperated N0-ME2 cried in desperation. "Stop it! stop it! stop it!", ME2 keeled over on his side. Minuteman helped him up, but the mako-droid didn't look too good.

"Can't you see what you're doing?!?" Minuteman stood up and took a step toward the BS droid. The BS droid backed away and disappeared out the door from where it came.

"N0-ME2, I think I understand what the problem you are having here is. I have friends who can help, but I'll need to transmit a message to them."

"I have to learn something." a very sad droid walked into the room. "It's not fair... knowledge upgrades happen too often. This sucks." The sad droid was an A2C model.

"Listen! It may not be my place to interfere here, but your community is on the path of self-destruction." Minuteman was surprised at his outburst, but felt a bit of an adrenaline rush.

N0-ME2 spoke again, "Yes, you can help us. There is a transmitter in the next room, call your friends... help us." the droid looked to be gaining strength, and would have smiled if its face plate could bend.

"Wolf!" came the frantic cry of a droid in distress.

The crowd of droids turned and saw that the frantic cry belonged to the floor lamp droid. Minuteman looked to N0-ME2 and saw that his head had started to spin. It spun until the head popped off and cogs and springs flew from the new opening in the mako-droid's torso.

"Oh I crack me up, anyway, I'm compiling a list of issue dates for the pneumonic device overlay chips installed in your servos, OK, give me the info."

The floor lamp droid was disassembled on the spot.

"Someone get me to the transmitter, I fear that Droidworld is in terrible danger." Minuteman had just realized what kind of powder keg he was sitting in. He was in a place of unknown size, with an unknown population, whose citizens were on the verge of going insane, or breaking out into civil war. He wasn't exactly sure of the problem, but he could read the symptoms. There might be an underlying problem here on Droidworld, but that would have to wait until the more obvious one was solved.

Some of the remaining droids lifted Minuteman up into the air and carried him off to the transmitter.


PART TWO

Minuteman was saddened by the loss of N0-ME2, but he didn't say a word as to that subject. The mako-droid died trying to explain the problem that he and the rest of the droids were having here on Droidworld. Although N0-ME2 never got around to explaining the problem, Minuteman had witnessed it first hand.

The droids set him down in front of the transmitter. Minuteman looked at the ominous piece of equipment. It had many knobs, buttons and gauges. He hardly knew where to start. "Could one of you explain to me how to use this thing?" he asked.

An eager little droid jumped up onto the console. "I'll show you!" it yelped. The small droid had the appearance of a weather vane with a small bucket for a head. It fiddled around with the controls and began it's explanation. "This is where received messages are kept."

"I don't need to know that right now, how do I send?" Minuteman had interrupted the droid, but the droid carried on.

"You hit this button here which is the reply key." The droid pushed the button and a small microphone popped up from the console. The droid sent out a reply to a received message, "That's what I think too!" It hit the stop button and looked up at Minuteman. "See? I'll show you again!"

Minuteman tried to persuade the droid that he understood completely the workings of the transmitter, but again, to no avail.

The bucket headed droid pushed some buttons and replied to yet another message. "Ha ha ha ha!" It said into the microphone, and then stopped the transmission. "This is fun, one more example."

"No wait!...!" Minuteman was once again not fast enough to keep up with the little bucket head.

The droid hit the reply button, sat quietly for a moment, and then ended his transmission.

"That was a message?!" Minuteman asked. Not as stunned as he should have been.

"Yes, I grinned." replied the droid.

Minuteman slapped his hand on his forehead in disbelief. "Thanks a lot little bucket-head-droid-guy, those messages will mean a lot to whoever is receiving them!" he said with somewhat of a sarcastic tone.

"Yes, they sure will. Those particular messages have been waiting in the received box for over a standard week now. The recipients will be pleased to receive their replies."

Minuteman ignored the droid for fear that he might go insane. He started up the transmitter, and proceeded to scramble his message so that it would securely reach the Rehz'nor. "Minuteman to Rehz'nor, I have been taken to a place called 'Droidworld'. I am not sure of it's location, but I am hoping that you can trace the signal. The population is all mechanical as far as I know, but their society is facing a possible collapse. It will take the best the Alliance has to offer to save this world from doom, please hurry. The situation is as follows..." Minuteman described the situation and then ended his coded transmission.

"What was that all about?" the bucket head droid asked.

"It was my message, did I say something wrong?" Minuteman looked back at the droid with a puzzled expression.

"Well, no, but that message won't get through." the droid stated matter-of-factly.

"Why *won't* it get through?" Minuteman's tone was angrier.

"Because our transmitter can only send responses of one line or less." The droid said proudly.

Minuteman slapped himself on the forehead again. He noticed that he had developed a twitch. He would have to re-send this message in short transmissions.

....


<<Aboard the Alliance Frigate Rehz'nor>>

"Sir, we are receiving high volumes of message traffic, you should take a look at this." The comm. officer spoke nervously.

Michael "Dragon" Shorten dashed over to the console to see. "Egads! The number of messages coming through is unbelievable!" He ran for the intercom panel. "Attention all hands, red alert. We are experiencing communications overload, all hands to their stations!"

Green Leader was interrupted by the comm. officer "Sir, the messages are coming in too fast... I can't.... aaahhh!!!" The comm. panel exploded and the Green Squadron Frigate rocked as the explosion roared across the bridge.

"Mike! Mike!" came Green XO's voice over the intercom "Mike are you there?!"

Green Leader picked himself up off the ground. He shoved a fallen panel out of his way and replied into the intercom. "I'm here Bill, we've got trouble. Get a medical crew up here, and have all squad members meet me in the ready room. You might also want to send out a request for some back up. This is the big one."

Dragon flicked off the intercom and turned to the chaotic bridge of the Rehz'nor. "Somebody piece together whatever can be salvaged from those messages, and track down their source!"


<<Back on Droidworld>>

....

"What do you mean the transmissions were on a 'replay loop'." Minuteman asked harshly to the bucket headed droid.

"Oh, we forgot to tell you, the transmitter sends out more than one copy of each message, several actually. This is to make sure that what we have to say gets heard." The droid replied proudly once again.

"By the Force... what have I done?" Green Eleven whispered to himself. Minuteman felt the twitch again, and a cold shiver run through his body.

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