Along the Route

[AutoFox]

Drones flitted along the narrow corridors of the drone barge, the small red and green lights atop their head turrets blinking rapidly as they carried out their assigned tasks.
They moved with purpose, tending carefully to the masses of terrified and grieving sentients packed into the corridors and cargo holds of the normally uncrewed freighter. They represented a myriad of species; Coruscant, after all, had been among the most populace and diverse planets in the Galaxy.
Had been.
One of the drones whisked over to a group of beings crowded around a small UHD screen, watching a satellite view of Coruscant being broadcast over the news networks. It was one of the few such feeds still available after the savage space battle over the planet, but it showed more than enough; whole sections of the planet were burning, clouds of black smoke rising high and wide into the atmosphere, but not enough to hide the devastation. Great rents had been torn in the cityscape, with whole districts sliding into the planet's broken crust...
The watchers barely noticed the drone as it chirped for attention, nodding gratefully but distractedly as they took warm drinks from the tray it carried.
On the command bridge, the intelligence controlling the droid let out the electronic equivalent of a deep, sad sigh.
DOC-01/24Z's facilities were not extensive, but to those who now traveled aboard her, she extended every courtesy she was capable of.
Her passengers needed it now, more than ever.
Their homes lay in ruins, and in all likelihood, many of their friends and families were dead. The ship had saved as many as she could; hundreds had crammed themselves into the drone's cargo bays, taxing her feeble life support system. DOC-01/24Z did not have the facilities to support such a number for any great length of time, and she knew it; she would have to install a new autochef after they left, as her current one was nearly worn out from serving so many people. Likewise, they had no place to sleep besides the hard durasteel of the cargo bay floors, and the single refresher simply would not do.
They would have to be let off wherever they stopped next.
"Sentry 1 to Green Bolide, we're just about to make another hyperspace jump; we should reach a station where you can offload your passengers soon. How are you holding up over there?"
DOC-01/24Z quickly replied to the transmission, using her practiced voice and identity.
"This is Captain Docina; good to hear, Sentry 1. It's a little crowded over here, and my ship wasn't built for comfort. Plus, it'll be nice to see a station."
Sentry 1 transmitted the next set of hyperspace coordinates to its dependents, and Une dutifully fed it into her navicomputer. It would be nice to see a station; though she was merely a computer, she found the social interactions and activities of the organics on board fascinating. Also, the central computers of such stations always seemed to have the most interesting stories...
Besides that, she needed parts.

After another hyperspace jump, Une's photoreceptors fell on the looming XQ5 Platform space station. Orbiting around an old mining planet, the station was festooned with docking tubes and coupled starships, all offloading their passengers to seek transit aboard other craft, carrying them even further away from the Empire.
Not hugely far away from Coruscant, it served as a transfer point for one of the myriad evacuation fleets which had left Coruscant. Their scant escort of Alliance military vessels left them at this point; officially they were to head to an Alliance redoubt, but after today, their future was entirely uncertain.
Une docked gently with one of the waiting terminals, and her passengers began to leave; like their protectors, their own fate now lay in the hands of the Force. The drone ship wished them well, but here was little more she could do for them, and that bothered her; she liked organics, and seeing them so distressed made her... sad.
I think I understand what the Jedi mean when they talk of the Dark Side of the Force. She thought to herself, remembering the looming Sith warships and swarming fighters which had hounded her escape.
Eventually, the last of the refugees left Une's cargo hold, and the ship was quiet again. Drones rushed to straighten up the interior, but one, trundling quietly along, rolled out through the docking tube and entered the station.
Une was in search of parts, gossip, and maybe a little nonspecific fun. In better spirits, she guided her boxy remote unit through the corridors of the space station, trying to stay out from underfoot of the large crowd of station crew, refugees and other beings.
There was much to do.

 

[Crim]

The light above Herroth flickered as he sat at a bench. He had been sitting at the bench for the last hour just looking at the vast expanse of space through a transparisteel window. Stars twinkled lightyears away as ships regularly passed the window on their way to the docking bay. He absently scratched his right leg. Before he had lost them and had them replaced, the back of his shin liked to itch for whatever reason. Digging his finger under his boot, he scratched the metallic foot for a moment before pulling his finger out of his boot when he remembered that it wasn't a real leg. Another ship passed the window. A droid barge. That had been yet another droid barge. Herroth had heard the industrial district had been hit hard, but he wasn't really in the mood to go back to Coruscant with a bounty on his head. There's adventurous and there's stupid.

The air conditioning turned on suddenly and a blast of cold air brushed past him. He suddenly became more aware of his immediate surroundings. It'd been a while since someone had walked by. He was sitting in an area without a lot of foot traffic. A maintenance drone would sometimes zip by, but not a lot of people at all. Suddenly, he began to hear approaching footsteps. Herroth's right hand wavered over his holstered gun just in case. He knew it wasn't likely to be who he was waiting for; he hadn't seen the ship yet. Sure enough, it was only a worker at the station. He nodded in acknowledgement of Herroth as he walked by. Herroth returned the nod, watching as the man walked by. He didn't take his hand off his gun until Herroth was certain the man was gone. Sure, it was paranoid. But how could Herroth not be?

He was literally sitting on 50 kilos of spice.

Herroth had made sure to sit in an area without a lot of security cameras. He was here for a spice deal from his employers. A barrel of glitterstim spice had been placed by Herroth under the floor panels. As he returned his focus to the viewport, he saw a gunship fly past the window. Herroth really hoped he wasn't going to have to Plan B this spice deal.

 

[AutoFox]

Few paid attention to Une's drone as it rolled along, keeping out of the way of the throngs of people and other droids going about their business.
Une did not need the drone's suite of sensors to tell her that the air aboard the station was one of stress and melancholy. Thousands of refugees walked the concourses, carrying on their backs probably the only possessions they had left; there were nervous voices, crying children, and shouted arguments everywhere Une turned her auditory receptors.
She gave another electronic sigh.
As she expected, when she passed the ticket counters, the lines were jammed with sentients trying to get tickets to somewhere, anywhere, far away. Thankfully, this meant that most of the station's other services were more or less ignored, and she had no trouble getting the parts she needed "on her Mistress' behalf" to repair her autochef and strained life support systems.
Dispatching another few drones to pick up her order from the station's stock room, she used the one she had ordered with to wander through the less traveled by halls and concourses. Even the other droids she encountered paid her little mind; they had important tasks to do.
Eventually, Une reached one of the station's long outer concourses, with a row of large transparisteel windows open to the star-field outside. The wide corridor was oddly devoid of people; most, it seemed, were more interested in getting passage on the next liner to the Outer Rim than in the view. Une's remotely controlled B0X slowed, turning its turret-like head to look out.
It was oddly beautiful, she mused; even if she had spent almost her entire life looking at that view, it never seemed to get old.
Stopping next to a bench where a nervous-looking man was sitting, the drone turned and looked fully at the star-studded vacuum beyond the transparisteel.
Amazing.

 

[Crim]

As Herroth considered the options available to him, he began to hear something else approach. He looked to see a drone approaching. He cursed inside as it approached the bench and looked at the window with him. His mind was buzzing with anger.
No. Shoo! Bad droid! Just... just move! Argh! Shoo! No! Why won't you leeaave?
He was about to alert the droid to a fake thing that needed fixing somewhere else, but then he thought for a minute. I've been on this station for a while now and the droids I've seen fixing things are hovering balls. This thing's a box. It belongs to somebody. He considered the possibility of it belonging to the owner of the massive gunship he saw, but it was unlikely that the ship had even docked yet.

He suddenly saw a Corellian freighter rush by the window. The ship's owner was likely his buyer. He just hoped the buyer would arrive first. He was more at ease and looked over to the droid. "Hello," he said.

 

[AutoFox]

Une had almost not noticed the human sitting on the bench beside her drone, and was briefly snapped from her reverie when he unexpectedly greeted her. Normally, organics paid her little to no attention, which usually suited her.
Curious, she turned and elevated the drones head turret to look up at the being.
"Hello."
She replied in a clear, natural sounding voice. Obviously, it was not the kind of sound one generally expected to hear from such a simple-looking droid as Une's drone was. Silently, she swept her sensors over the human; male, late 30s or early 40s, 1.8 meters, artificial legs... that was interesting. She had always wondered if beings who were "part droid", as many derisively called them, might be more sympathetic to her situation.
She wouldn't chance that topic of conversation right off, though.
Une considered the man; he seemed agitated about something, and her measuring scanner was giving her off readings.
Turning her sensors back to the window, she let her ancillary processors work on the information as she continued.
"Nice to find a place away from all the hustle back there, hm?" She remarked, noting a Corellian freighter pulling up to one of the docking tubes. "This place is a madhouse today. Just dropped off a load of passengers myself."
Her sensors turned back to the man.
"What about you? Hauling passengers? Or just freight? You look like a starship captain to me."

 

[Dóiteán]

Aramis docked his Wayfarer-class medium transport, Relic Warrior, at the station. Leaving the ship with Seven, his trusted astromech, Aramis went to one of the shops to have some supplies delivered to his ship. Continuing down the station, he stood staring out a viewport. Near him was another human and a drone. The drone intrigued him. Aramis stood there continuing to stare out the viewport, occasionally looking at the drone. It looked peaceful outside.

 

[Crim]

He certainly didn't expect the droid to speak in Basic, so Herroth had to do a double take before responding to the droid. He nonchalantly looked at the elevator before turning back to the droid. "I'm waiting for someone. I've got something to give him," he said. "But you are right: this place certainly is a madhouse. I hadn't planned on it being this crowded when we planned this get-together," he continued. Just then, another man arrived in the hall. Herroth was screaming internally. The cargo hold was likely to be under surveillance, so this unimportant hall was likely to be the best place for a spice deal. The spice crate looked like normal cargo anyway, so it was unlikely to arouse suspicion if the buyer was quick about getting it to his ship. Maybe some water or fuel for his ship or something.

Herroth pulling a barrel out of the floor panel, however, would arouse a ton of suspicion.

Maybe the people in the hall would leave in a few minutes. Whatever the case was, if the owner of that gunship arrived before the buyer did, things in that hallway could get messy.