Bay's day out

[Bay]

Day 1 on Coruscant

Bay picked up his latest creation, a modified mouser droid. It’s programming was simple, patrol the ship for nano-droids, if found, contact Bay and emit an EMP pulse. It would take a few seconds to charge, leaving the droid vulnerable during that time, but it was the best he could do with the limitations of the parts. Worse case scenario, it would serve as an early detection system.

Bay beckoned his NR-5 over and handed him the droid, “Here, take this and plug him in next to the other one. How’s your ‘nest’ going?”

The NR-5 chirped and responded in a monotone voice, “The Faraday cage is almost complete. It should be finished in two more hours.”

Bay nodded, “Good. If either of these two send out their warning signal, you’ll only have a few seconds to get inside. Otherwise your circuitry may be damaged. Do you understand?”

The droid nodded and took the mouser droid to be charged next to the other one. The two of them looked exactly alike. Two little boxy black boxes on wheels. You could almost think of them as a matching set, or even twins.

Or clones.

Bay closed his eyes and leaned back.

“Oh god,” he thought, “I’m a clone.”

He hadn’t allowed himself to think about it during the last two days. He kept himself preoccupied building the droids. But now, after arriving on Coruscant and most of the group preoccupied with their own things, he found that he had the time to think.

“What does that even mean?” he wondered. “How much of me is even really me and how much of it is by design?”

He looked at his little collection of droids, at his tools, and his data pad.

“Definitely the technological knack was by design, but what else?”

He looked down the hall from the Engineering station, hearing muffled voices from the other people on board.

“Maybe wanting to be useful? That would make sense. It would definitely make me a better servant to a master or a corporation.”

He sighed and decided he should stop thinking about it. If there was one thing he could say about who he was, was that he was an engineer and that meant he solved practical problems, not philosophical ones. He looked around the cargo hold.
“What problems can this Engineer solve?” he murmured.

That’s when he heard giggles coming from the adjacent cargo room, followed by the tell tale rhythmic thudding sounds. Sounds he had heard at least a few times during their trip.

He sighed and reached into his pockets, plucking out his modified credit chips.

“I think I need to take care myself first.”

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“She’ll treat ya good! When you ride her, it’ll feel like silk. I promise ya, she’s the best in the lot.”

The Rodian clasped his hands and smiled.

Bay scratched his chin and his eyes looked up and down.

“I don’t know. I was hoping you could show me one that’s a little bigger? One that you wouldn’t mind being rough with?”

The Rodian smiled and nodded, “Oh sir, this lady is tough! I’ll admit she’s a little bit on the smaller side, but she can handle whatever rough treatment you put her through. I speak from experience. She’s tougher than she looks.”

Bay paced, trying to make up his mind, “How many people you think we can fit inside?”

“Oh she’ll handle six easily, more if you don’t mind putting a few in the back.”

“Ok, but I notice that she’s missing her...”

“Ah, you noticed. Listen it’s no problem. She’ll get you there. She may not have her teeth no more, but for your price range, she’s a bargain!”

Bay focused on the small freighter. She had seen better days and Bay wasn’t crazy about her not having any weapons, but the salesman was right. For his price range, this ship was a pretty good deal. He had inspected the engines himself.

“Alright, it’s a deal.”