Chapter 7

In the prison section of the pirate ship 'the Vermin' three terrified pirates were running down a darkly lit corridor.

"Hurry get the door"

"Is it still following us"

"I don't know just hurry and open that door"

"I'm trying"

While one of the pirates was fiddling with a security door the other two were looking nervously back up the corridor.

The far end of the corridor was cloaked in darkness until a broken wire on the ceiling sprayed sparks out illuminating a sinister looking assassin bot wielding a vibrosword. The sparks falling from the ceiling cascaded down its metal body. The red glow of its optical units cast a menacing light in the shadowy corridor.

"Your termination is authorised by house Dredd" came the voice of the assassin droid, its ominous sound making the droid seem like death personified.

One of the pirates driven to madness by the stress of the situation screamed in rage and charged the droid only to be cut down by a single swing of the vibrosword.

The pirate fiddling with the door controls finally got it open and rushed through it closing it behind him immediately leaving the third pirate still dazed by his companion's death trapped in the corridor with the droid.

The pirate collapsed with his back to the door panting ignoring the frantic banging and pleading for help from his friend on the other side of the door and ignoring when the sound came to a sudden stop.

He felt safe, the heavy metal door behind him would keep that damned droid out, it didn't matter that his crew mates were dead as long as he was safe.

He kept thinking that up until the security door wooshed open and the feeling of safety from the door was immediately replaced by a death grip from a cold robotic hand on his neck.

The pirate looked up into the droids red eyes in terror before his world became darkness.

-

Renn stood vigilantly outside the airlock onboard the Speedy Vagabond along with Bolt.

Despite being an astromech Bolt was more than capable in a fight, the T7 series droids were armed with both a blaster and a flamethrower as part of their standard armaments While Bolt had also gained some extra modifications from the technomancers of house Dredd.

So, it was an unspoken reality that rather than guarding the airlock Bolt was there to guard Renn. Renn Pretended he hadn't noticed that to be the case and continued to watch the airlock in case any pirates tried to storm their ship.

Renn felt his comm link chime and quickly realised that it was Alpha so answered it, "hi Alpha, are you ok? How is everything going?"

"Everything is fine little one, we are all okay and have secured the enemy ship. Scythe has searched the prison area of the ship and has only found one prisoner. It seems there were others at some point, but the pirates got rid of them before capturing the one they currently have." Alpha's reply came over the comms.

"I am on my way back to meet you then we can go and meet the prisoner together." Alpha told Renn

"Okay, see you soon" Renn answered him.

-

A few minutes later Renn and alpha were walking towards the pirate ships prisons. Once onboard the ship Renn could feel the force pulling him in the direction they were going.

He ignored the signs of destruction on the ship only focusing on where he was going curious about who he would find when he got there.

After the fighting had ended the droids had fixed some of the ships systems such as the lights that had gone off during the battle, so the corridors were now fairly well lit.

When they arrived at the prison, they found Spark and Scythe stood waiting for them. They were still alert to any possible dangers but had holstered their weapons now that the fighting was over.

"Hey kid, welcome to the prison" Spark greeted Renn while Scythe waved quietly from further in the prison.

"Hi guys" Renn responded while looking around in interest.

Seeing this Spark spoke up, "she's in there" before pointing at the door to a cell that Scythe was stood by.

Walking up to the little view port in the cell door Renn managed to see a small girl huddled up in one dark corner of a small cell.

Immediately Renn realised that this was the person he had sensed through the force, he wanted to find out why he was able to sense her and why he felt the force pulling him in her direction when he boarded the ship.

He prepared himself to enter the cell when a thought struck him, this would be the first new person he had ever met. Ever since he was born the only people, he had ever known were his grandmother and the droids.

He suddenly felt very unsure of what he was supposed to do and turned to the droids behind him.

"Errm, how do you introduce yourself to new people?" he asked slightly embarrassed.

The three assassin droids stood looking at each other without quite knowing how to answer. This wasn't exactly their area of expertise, so they weren't confident on how to offer their help.

"…. Just wave then say hi? …" came the quiet answer from Scythe.

The droid usually preferred to keep quiet in conversations and even managed to make his advice seem like a question, but it was all Renn had so he decided to just go with it.