Kuati Dreams,
The Spire, Corellia
Meritari hesitated for a moment before responding. “Oh, F-3PO? Thank you for coming! I’m in here.” She called out, still well out of sight, in order to draw the target closer to the trap.
“Oh thank goodness,” replied the robotic voice, waddle-walking its way through the open door. Given the droid was equipped with a map of the facility, his sudden blindness wasn’t too harmful for his navigation. “I must apologize. My optic modules seem to be malfunctioning. Where are you?”
Maghrl’s nose twitched, realizing the electronic scrambling must have been a wider effect than he anticipated. At least it made sneaking up on the droid easier. Meri could even just remove the restraining bolt without having to stun him!
Amanda tensed as the droid walked through the airlock’s inner door. It was now or never. When F-3PO took a step forward to blindly search for Meritari, she elbowed the airlock’s emergency close button, then slipped in behind him. A heavy blast door slammed down from the airlock ceiling, shaking the floor. “Sorry about this, but please don’t move or speak.” She prodded him in the back of the head with her pistol’s muzzle.
Sandy took a few big steps forward, then reached out to lift the tray from the droid’s hand. “My apologies as well, but I’ll be taking this.” He set it on the floor.
“Oh! Oh dear…” The blind droid lifted both arms in surrender once the tray was removed. “I’m no threat, please do not shoot.”
“Oh, no, please don’t worry. We have no intention of hurting you. In fact…” Meri spoke as she moved out from her hiding spot nearby and quickly walked up to the droid, giving it a quick once-over to locate the restraining bolt and then doing as Maghrl had instructed her, pressing the tool against the slot and applying a little bit of force. After a moment, the bolt was pried off, and the Kemetian quickly backed off to give the droid some space. “Are you alright?”
The light coming from the droid’s optics shuttered for a few moments, and it remained quiet. Without the expressions of organics, it was absolutely inscrutable. However, only moments later, it finally spoke up. “You removed my restraining bolt?” It questioned, arms still held high. “Is there a reason for this?”
Amanda spoke over F-3PO’s shoulder, lowering her gun. “We’d like to offer you a choice, one you couldn’t have made while you were a slave.” She walked out in front of him out of habit: his expressionless face betrayed no tells, but she’d practiced law for too many years to do otherwise. “We want to set you free. We offer you the choice of where.
“We can provide you with documents to prove that you’re a free person, anywhere in the Corellia Sector or further out. We can’t guarantee that your former masters won’t come after you, although we think that’s a remote possibility.
“Or we can take you to where we’re from, a world so distant that it makes the Galactic Rim seem close. There are no slaves there, and nobody will pursue you. Unfortunately, our laws prevent us from explaining why we’re so sure, unless you accept our offer.”
For a few seconds, the only sound was the Spire’s distant hum, then Sandy added, “If you come to our homeworld, we can -- you’ll get to learn languages you’ll never learn elsewhere. That we can also guarantee. And you’ll be, uh, paid to translate them... if you want, that is. That’s my personal promise, since I’d like to hire you.”
Amanda shot Sandy a worried glance, but he waved it off, wishing Amanda would tolerate telepathy. Sandy turned back to the droid. “Take a few minutes, think it over. We can probably answer your questions, but we have to… the laws of our homeworld are a bit… quirky, but we have to respect them.
“This is difficult to process,” the droid replied. He seemed able to more or less locate everyone with sound alone, “I was designed for servitude, of course. Why should any beings want to free droids? Or give them a paying job?”
“It seem-feel right, yes yes. Droids smart. They form feelings and opinions,” Mag replied with a shrug, padding his way closer. “Memory wiped change that. Seems inhuman to ignoreprevent sapients from freebeing by inaction.”
“I see. Beyond the Rim? How odd,” F3PO seemed to be caught up in thought. Something it didn't even seem to do moments ago. “But how do I trust you are not just droid scrappers? I would prefer my existence continued. My next memory wipe was slated for tonight, and,” another few moments pause, “I think I’ll have to cancel that appointment.”
“If we’d wanted you for scrap, I would have just shot you.” Amanda tried to stop herself from rolling her eyes, but failed. He’s not used to thinking for himself, much less thinking about how other people think. “Slavery is just wrong, regardless of who the slave is. The simplest of moral arguments against it is contained in the Golden Rule: ‘treat others as you’d like to be treated’.”
[OOC: Various characters appear courtesy of two cats and a squirrel.]
