Ask Little Lost Satyr

[Neeka Wren]

Somewhere on Krownest...

​

The bar attached to the top-right of her helmet whirred as it disengaged the magnification and returned to it's usual idle position. Her gloved hands pressed upon either side and slowly removed the entire covering with a pneumatic hiss before running back and through her long hair several times. A sigh was visible in the air in the form of vapor exhaling from between her lips. Neeka Wren was bored.

At least the weather was nice in that it wasn't so freezing that she was forced to flee back to shelter. The tip of her nose was already reddening in the cold and snowflakes collected upon thick black eyelashes. Neeka tried to get herself to enjoy the peacefulness of the moment; the utter stillness around her would have been enough to help a jedi lift a mountain, she reckoned. That's how the Force worked, right? Eh.

The toes of her boots dug into mounds of powdery snow beneath her hovering swoop bike while her fingers drummed a tuneless pattern upon the handlebars. The life of a scout was not much different from the life of a freighter pilot, it was turning out. Both involved long stretches of silent travel. Both were fairly solitary, give or take a companion or two. And both were simply things that needed to be done. Neeka was just the right person for the job all too often- despite her intolerance of boring situations. That's what made snowfields like the one extending out below the shelf she rested upon so enticing...it was likely to be the only fun she'd have on routine patrols like this.

The engine thrummed on her Balutar Class Swoop as the young Mandalorian re-donned the helm and guided the machine to the beginning of the course she'd mapped out in her head. She tightened her grip slowly, then kicked it into a quick high gear.


The landscape became a white blur around her, sending adrenaline careening through her veins like a crashing wave. Faster. She urged the Swoop Bike to increase its speed. Neeka wondered how bad it'd hurt to go this fast in this cold without her helmet on. I can get this thing to go even f-

The thought was interrupted by a glint to the east that shone in the muffled sun like something man-made. Immediately Neeka pulled the bike into a drift that sent up arcs of snow, braking herself to a stop once more. Quickly, she activated the magnification again and tried to get a better look at...whatever this thing was.

At first it more resembled a frozen-over skeleton that seemed to be reaching out from somewhere deep below the ice. The longer Neeka viewed it, the more she came to pick out parts that might once have been recognizable. The tattered hull of a derelict ship jutted out of the distant landscape as though beckoning the warrior to come closer. There shouldn't have been anything out here at all in this section of tundra. This was not a shipwreck anymore- this was a grave.


Neeka flicked her bike back into gear and soon she was eating up the distance between herself and the heap of twisted metal.

@Citheronia

 

[S8R-D]

The stench of a repulsorlift battery reached the droid’s energy scanner, causing it to raise its flat forebody in examination of the terrain. In the next moment, the hum of an approaching engine shined in its audio receptors, followed by the quick jab of a radar ping. Chirping with panic, S8R-D fled toward the very wreckage that had sparked the intruder’s interest.

It clutched a small eggshell that it had found in the nearby forest of Krownean pines, holding it aloft as it stumbled over the frozen rocks toward shelter. It might not take an experienced eye to recognize the structure as a crashed Imperial escape shuttle. If the advancing figure did not notice the little flash of movement in the shadow of its makeshift doorway, they might be more likely to detect the clover-shaped tracks in the ever-fresh snow.

A practiced path was followed between the piles of clutter on the ground– a small collection of organic and inorganic samples were laid on every surface in a grid-like pattern, sorted into some calculable matrix of meaning. Stones, twigs, wires, bits of rot, tufts of hair, shards of metal, and all manner of other scavenged treasures remained undisturbed as S8R-D found a wall panel to hide behind.

Perhaps more notable was the only surface that did not have anything on it: a bed made out of crates and paper was the final resting place of a long-dead skeleton, fused to the thin cocoon of blankets that held it. Its perpetual grin taunted the meticulous inventory, its empty eyes staring through the wall panel as if to tell its guest exactly where S8R-D was. The droid itself was trembling in the darkness of its hiding nook, and quietly enough… until it glanced at the eggshell in its little claw and realized that it was shattered.

S8R-D loosed a dejected sigh, followed by a squeak of alarm.

@Neeka Wren

 

[Neeka Wren]

One thing was entirely certain; this thing was of Imperial design. It had that bulky-yet-executive look that the Empire loved so well even still and clearly had been expensive at some point. Also there was a giant Imperial symbol emblazoned on the side. It couldn't have been a very large vessel in its prime which led Neeka to believe that it had probably been a shuttle of some kind.

Crashed here, then? It wasn't outside of the realm of possibility if it had strayed too close to Wren's territory. After all...she'd been in a Fang-class fighter once before, herself, so she knew how deadly they could be. Neeka had been pining after it ever since.

No way any of the crew could still be alive she thought, making the judgement by the thickness of the frost upon it. This mess had been here for a long while; longer than anyone could have survived on this planet outside of the Stronghold. Something was living here, however- the little footprints in the snow spoke to some kind of bird, probably. Shelter was shelter, she supposed.


As the young warrior entered the wreckage she was greeted with a sight she never could have expected and quickly paused to take it in. A disorderly ordered pattern of seemingly random stuff dominated the majority of the vessel's surfaces. It was almost like a ritual- one without any clear purpose.

"Woah." The commlink-muffled voice broke the stillness with a soft exclamation.

Neeka's boots were placed very precisely, for she felt a need to not disturb the things that were systematically splayed out before her during her exploration of the derelict shuttle. Though it was comprised of things that were basically biological-based garbage, there was a certain beauty to how accurately everything lay away from one another. The grids all seemed to adhere to a very strict spacing. What exactly had she stumbled upon?

So absorbed as she was in the display, Neeka didn't even notice the figure resting upon a makeshift sepulcher until she all but stood over it. She jolted as she finally did, her hand whipping down to cradle the blaster in its holster on reflex. "Osik!" She cursed through her teeth.


The blaster fully emerged when Neeka heard something behind her and she whipped around to face it. "Who's there?" She demanded with weapon pointed, yet eyes blind to whatever had created the gentle beeping. "Come on out! Rude to spy on people, you know!"

@Citheronia

 

[S8R-D]

There was a moment of hesitation, of clinging to the impossible possibility that it could remain hidden. The darkness behind the panel was its only protection from the tapping of hasty feet, the gentle noise of a charged energy cell, the faint but unpredictable scent of a human body. But the demand was made, and S8R-D was compelled to obey.

A mouth-like bar of violet light peered out from behind the bent durasteel, flashing with the electronic syllables of droidspeak. “This one follows self-preservation protocols,” it said with a series of sloping chirps. “There is no intention to be rude, or to spy.”

Only then did it emerge fully, its bipedal feet clicking softly with careful contact on the metal floor. Its sensors were primed toward the newcomer's own feet, wary of any disturbances to the meticulous arrangement that surrounded them both. In her haste, Neeka’s heel had just barely disturbed a small pine cone such that it had rolled out of its place on the grid. S8R-D’s legs bent and its light fluttered with certain disdain, but its next move was to look deferentially toward the dead man behind her. Apparently understanding some unspoken direction from him, the purple light slid into a defensive red.

“Its designation is S8R-D.” The chimes were flatter now, like vigilance and distrust. It wagged its little chin at the Mandalorian, in reference to her. “What does that one want with our research?”

@Roobi

 

[Neeka Wren]

The young warrior hadn't really known what she'd been expecting, but she knew that whatever it was it could not have been near the truth. Her head cocked slightly to the side in confusion as a robotic beeping and whirring sounded out that she quickly understood as Binary thanks to her brother's insistence that they both learn it as children. She'd have to thank him for that one day.

Droid or not, Neeka's blaster remained in hand and ready until she managed to get a full look at it. Only then did she relax her stance. This was no combat model or automated defense or anything of that sort; Neeka was definitely not an expert but this thing was obviously closer in design to an astromech or probe droid. Odds were good that it didn't even possess the capability for weaponry.

"Hey, buddy." The Mandalorian put a smile into her voice as she twirled her blaster back into its sheath. "Nice to meet you- sorry about the gun. You just snuck up on me- S8R-D, you said?"

Thinking that it might help put the derelict droid a bit more at ease for some reason, the warrior lifted and removed her helmet and rested it upon her hip. She noted the concern it seemed to show over the odd arrangements around them and assumed that it had been the one to do it all, so she was careful where to step from then on.

"My name's Neeka. Promise i'm not here to take anything- I was just curious about what was in this ship. How long have you been here? Was..." She turned her head slightly. "...was that your master?"

@Citheronia

 

[S8R-D]

Perhaps it should have withheld information; the instinct was there, a few lines of haphazard code tangled up in a decade-long string of undisturbed machine learning. But whatever thread of distrust might have given the droid pause was quickly overridden by higher protocols. S8R-D’s primary purpose was to gather and share information. It was not a secret-keeper.

The red glow of its mouth-like lightrod flickered and dimmed into its usual violet, showing a tiny bar that quickly filled as S8R-D searched it databanks. Then the droid straightened suddenly, its flat head at a perfect level as its light flashed into something stark and blue and monotone.

“Query one!” Its beeping soundmaker seemed to be broken in one spot, causing a sort of sneezing noise that noised almost like an exclamation. “Yes. S8R-D is one of four vector-class probe droids employed on the Pilgrim Research Cruiser, Imperial Starship 617SC-55. This is the location of escape pod three of six.

“Query two! One-thousand, eight-hundred and seventy-one Krownest days.” It’s possible that Neeka would understand this to be the equivalent of a little over nine galactic standard years.

“Query three! This one’s operator is Doctor Gravan Kite, who is located behind you.” From S8R-D’s perspective, Neeka’s bared face would reflect the various colors that it displayed in the low light within the escape pod. Now they shared the pale purple that seemed to indicate a resting state. Its duty complete, the droid looked around at the collection of items around their feet. Not without another glance at the dead scientist in the corner, S8R-D directed an almost hopeful trill toward the armored woman.

“Without his input, there is a backlog of new data to analyze. Would you like to resume analysis?”

 

[Neeka Wren]

Well, this was awkward. Neeka stared at the droid, then at its deceased master. Then back at the droid.

"I...dunno how to put this, buddy. Your uhh- operator? He's...gone. How will...- he's terminated...functioning? I'm sorry." Neeka's voice was soft and gentle, as though consoling a child who had lost her parents. Her hand sought the back of her neck, scratching for the sake of having something to do with it.

"Have you really been out here that long? It must have been lonely." Neeka empathized. Her mind flashed back to her darkest moments: the loss of her brother and the Starsong. Kolvin's face, as stoic and tired as she remembered, refused to leave her even now. He really would have loved this little science droid. The thought itself triggered a flurry of feelings mostly centering around sudden endearment and attachment to S8R-D.

"I'll tell you what. Let me signal home and maybe I can get some of my clan to come out here and help me haul the pod to where you can at least be around people again, yeah? I'd hate to leave-"

As the Mandalorian had been speaking, she had moved to the front of the vessel to search for anything on the helm that might help in their situation when the entire pod suddenly lurched forward, scattering the carefully-collected specimens into haphazard piles. Neeka's hands shot out to steady herself against the dashboard near her and just barely managed to avoid getting smacked by a skeletal hand. The escape vessel rumbled for a few moments before ceasing. Dust settled down in slow clouds, falling from the ceiling.

"...So. Uh. We should-" Again, Neeka was cut off as a thunderous CRACK! deafened her and at the same time the pod became a tiny realm of chaos. It was then that the young warrior realized her mistake; this ice shelf was not nearly as thick as she'd assumed it was. It must have been more like an icy cliff...one that the escape pod was now quickly crashing through after its weight had been shifted for the first time in years.


The Mandalorian immediately sprang into action. Neeka pushed off against the panel that was now under her and leapt as hard as she could into the air.

Two things happened simultaneously that she'd later recall without any real idea of how she managed to even pull them off. The warrior's right hand snatched her helmet by the rim from the air while her left slammed against the rapidly vanishing floor. A pneumatic burst of metal cord shot out from a device on her wrist and sailed high into the sky and with it, a prayer to the stars that luck was with them.

Neeka's arm was nearly wrenched entirely out of its socket as the grapple wedged between two solid blocks of pure ice at the last moment. The escape pod roared around her, falling and missing the now-dangling warrior by the barest fraction of an inch.


She could only hope that her new friend had managed to grab onto her or survive in some other way while the pod was reduced to a crumpled heap far below them.

@Citheronia

 

[S8R-D]

It had been reaching for the pinecone that Neeka’s heel had disturbed, prepared to quietly right its position, when the world lurched around them. Reflexively S8R-D clamped down on the little object, as if it would be the first thing put back into place when everything settled. But of course, nothing did.

Four different sensors emerged from behind various panels in the droid’s duraplast carapace, quickly scanning their surroundings to detect the strange shifts in gravity and momentum. S8R-D did not react as quickly as the human, but its tangled instinct did manage to direct its movement toward her. For a split second its photoreceptors considered the pinecone in its grasp, the only item of dozens that was not currently falling away from them into a distant ravine, and it found itself with a choice to make: use its single manipulator arm to hold this treasure, or grab hold of the only person who wasn’t falling.

By the time the Mandalorian found herself swinging from the end of a grappling wire, she would soon also discover a fifty-pound droid with its hard, lanky legs wrapped tightly around her waist.

“Item sixty-one!” S8R-D said triumphantly, holding the pinecone out over the cold cliffside. Then it drew the item close against Neeka’s back, protecting it from the elements. “Krownest Pine Seed Dispersal Pod.”

@Roobi

 

[Neeka Wren]

"HRRRK! GHH! URGGHGHH!"

A series of odd grunts and pained noises accompanied the confirmation that S8R-D had survived when the robotic limbs clamped around her midsection and caused most of the air to leave her lungs.

"OOOOOF! Buddy- you're heavier than you look! What is...a pinecone? Uhh. Good... job, EssEight?" Neeka would have shrugged a shoulder if both were not being weighed down by a droid. With great difficulty, the young warrior managed to jab the button that allowed them to ascend ponderously back to solid ground as it retracted the metal cord. Luckily for them, the grapple had been built to last. Before too long she was clambering for a foot hold as she hauled both Mando and droid back onto the safe edge.


"Uhhh. EssEight? You can let go now, buddy." That was the second time she had voiced the droid's designation, but already Neeka could tell that it just didn't really fit quite right. A nickname was gonna have to be in order.

"Are you alright? No damage, right?" Neeka sighed in relief as she confirmed a lack of injury on either herself or her new friend before peering back over the cliffside. The pod was nowhere to be seen anymore- it had fallen and rolled too far. "That was close!"

"Look- Ess... tsk. Uh. S8R-D? Can I call you ArrDee? ...wait, no!" The young Mandalorian tucked her helmet back over her face, instantly feeling comforted by its presence even in the wake of nearly dying. "I got it! I'll call you Sadie! Whatcha think of that?"


"Well, Sadie...we can't stay around here anymore. Do you wanna come back home with me?"

@Citheronia

 

[S8R-D]

The pinecone was still clutched gingerly in S8R-D’s manipulator arm as it slowly unfastened itself from Neeka’s torso and tested the solid ground beneath its clover-shaped feet. A purplish beam emitted in a cone from its radar sensor as it scanned the ice beneath them for further cracks and other hazards. But even the light itself sputtered with use as an automated binary message chirped, “Radar sensor is at zero-three percent capacity. Please repair or replace it soon.”

S8R-D jumped a little as it realized that it was being addressed, then assumed a dry blue color and straight rigid posture. A series of whirs and trills followed as Mandalorian’s initial questions were assessed. “Completed! Diagnostic test. Since last test, air density sensor capacity decreased. Substance analyzer capacity decreased. Radar sensor capacity decreased. Duraplast frame maintains eighty-nine percent integrity.” Then it blinked back to violet and tilted its head at the human’s deliberations.

The droid’s photoreceptors moved hesitantly back toward the cliffside. Perhaps it mourned the now irrelevant data backlog that was rapidly deleted from its memory, or the long-dead master that it would never see again. Dr. Kite always used its full name: Ess-Eight-Are-Dee. But Dr. Kite’s research was to be his legacy, and it lived on in S8R-D’s data banks. And the droid wasn’t programmed to care what it was called.

It gave an affirming tweet to its new name, then its little row of lights flickered and twinkled almost excitedly with the launch of a new dataset. After all, what was Home but a new laboratory to operate in? “Initiate Protocol! Zero. Zero. One. Assign operator.” It would then rattle off the following questions, repeating them if they were not answered and refusing to continue until they were. Again, the strange sneezing glitch made each colon sound like an exclamation.

“What is your! Name?”

“What is your! Rank?”

“What is your! Hypothesis?”

@Roobi

 

[Neeka Wren]

The longer she listened to this quirky probe droid, the deeper Neeka's frown grew.

"Yikes. You've really been out here for a while, haven't you? If only Vin were here, he could fix you right up easy. I'll do my best though and we'll get you feeling better again real soon, 'k?"

After pressing an indention upon the left side of her helm and reporting back to base into her commlink, Neeka felt a lot better about the whole situation. If it weren't for her, this poor droid probably would have expired in the cold or been crushed when the pod inevitably broke through the thin shell of ice on its own. With her, Sadie could be kept in good condition and maybe even do some good for Clan Wren...not that the young warrior was any sort of scientist. Still. Judging by the list of accessories the droid listed off and Neeka's penchant for creativity in battle, they might just be pretty effective together.

Plus she was already emotionally attached to Sadie like a sudden mother who had found herself with an unplanned adoption.


"My name's Neeka." She said, smiling at the slurry of questions voiced by what almost was a lisp for droidspeak. "Rank? Uhh. Verd, technically- but that probably isn't in your databanks. I'm a Mandalorian warrior for Clan Wren; that's where we're headed, in fact. Back home to them. As for hypothesis...?"

Neeka had pointed them towards the incline of the slope and was leading them back to her swoop bike as they spoke. Upon her last sentence she was already swinging a leg over the vehicle and patting the back of the seat invitingly.

"My hypothesis is that if we don't get the hell out of this cold then we will definitely freeze to death soon as the next storm hits. C'mon, Sadie- hop on."


It was not a comfortable ride by any definition with both droid and Mandalorian occupying the back of the bike and single seat respectively. Luckily for Neeka, comfort was not a big priority for most droids and all the warrior had to worry about was not accidently knocking the poor thing off during the swift traversal. Wind whipped cold around them as they ate up the distance between wilderness and the Stronghold and soon the huge structure seemed to form out of the icy mountains themselves. Neeka's Balutar class swoop bike was joined to a line of identical ones before it was powered down.

After a formal in-person report to her more experienced clan mates, Neeka wasted no time in showing Sadie her new home. The first stop was Neeka's own room; a smallish and sparsely decorated block that nonetheless possessed a breathtaking view of the frozen forest that Sadie had wandered in for nine long years.


"Hop up onto the table, buddy, and i'll be right back with some tools and stuff. After we take a lookie and see what we can see, how about a hot oil bath? Bet you haven't had one of those in ages!"

@Citheronia

 

[S8R-D]

S8R-D had no instinct for family or childhood, but it did have a heuristic processor that recognized patterns in organic responses to its actions. Babes earned the protection of their elders through the appearance of helplessness and charm, and the droid was learning that its own safety (not to mention its programming) relied on such traits. It sang a little tune of acknowledgement as the answers to its questions were logged.

The hypothesis kept it busy on the trip to Home. Temperature and air density data were taken at every mile, with a little violet cone of light flashing at the topography as they passed. At one point S8R-D was even able to warn Neeka about a particularly soft patch of snow that might have made a sinkhole in the heat of her engine.

Eventually it found itself on a table in a small spartan bedroom where its sensors buzzed with new information. What the place lacked in weather and hazards, it had in novelty and dust. S8R-D found it just as intriguing as the pine forests of Krownest’s outer reaches, its attention split between various inputs. “The hypothesis! ‘If we do not leave the cold then we will die by freezing’ was supported by the data available. Suggestion! Further trials may be necessary. Would you like to input a new hypothesis?”

It would submit to whatever analysis and tools Neeka would take to it, exposing various scanners from beneath its carapace for her to inspect. Talk of an oil bath inspired a little dance that resembled excitement, but was really S8R-D checking all of its joints for the best place to start. “This one would benefit from an oil bath,” it affirmed, but only moments before its photoreceptors settled on a unique item in the room that was not already in its databanks.

“What is that?” the droid inquired, pointing with a conical beam of violet light.

 

[Neeka Wren]

Most of the wiring and internal circuitry was a complete mystery to the speed-focused Mandalorian, but she did what she could for the little droid. Dirt had acclimated in various grooves which needed to be blasted out by a finely-focused jet of air. A few wires were frayed that Neeka "bandaged" up before tucking them back where they were supposed to be. It wasn't much by the end of her efforts, but it was better than nothing.

"Oh, wow- you really are missing a lot of bits 'n stuff! Don't worry, we'll get- hmm?"

Her sentence stopped short by a query from the droid and a light aimed over her shoulder, Neeka swiveled and looked for the item in question.

"...Ahh. That. Right." A soft sigh escaped her lips. She took a few steps to close the distance to a small disc and pressed a button upon its base. Immediately it flared to life, projecting a translucent blue image of two young humans. One of them was clearly an earlier version of Neeka and the other seemed to share quite a few facial features with her, most notably a shaggy head of silky black hair. The two on the holovid loop appeared to be having a good time; a bottle was between them and laughter clearly on their lips despite the lack of audio. Neeka's eyes lingered upon the image.


"You two would have gotten along, I know it. Vin and droids were like two seeds in a Ukian spring-fruit pod. Hell- he was part droid himself, technically."

She watched her regret linger and hum along with the softly vibrating power supply until another jab of her finger caused the image to vanish.


"C'mon, Sadie. Let's go get you that bath."