I was given a mission from Baron Thululu to go off world. I was given the name Rayn and nothing else. The mission is to go to Eriadu, get into their military droid facilities and steal the plans for their new military droid. Bring it back to Baron Thululu. Since I did not have much money or a way to get to Eriadu by myself, I snuck aboard a shuttle that took me to the Arc V Cruisliner. I hid inside a suitcase and found myself in the cargo bay. While there I found 100,000 Credits as well as a bowcaster belonging to a Titan Bloodstorm. I took them of course, free stuff is free stuff. There was a guard by the door so I distracted him by throwing something towards the side of the room I was not in and when he went to check it, I snuck out. Me and Roger then went into the main passenger area and looked around. Me and Roger talked a bit in Jawaese about our mission. Then we saw a sign for a presentation on a new brain washing machine of the empire’s. I knew that the rich folk would be there, as well as a Doctor Mercival. Doctor Mercival is an augmentation scientist and I wanted to pick his brain about my mechanical arm. I went over to the VIP elevator and stood nearby until a very important person walked by. Now I did not want to go with this particular very important person as he was surrounded by stormtroopers with black armor. I had not seen this kind of stormtrooper before, but I later learned that they were called Death troopers. Now that is a scary name. As they were walking past I tried to act nonchalant, but he still noticed me. He stopped and asked what I was doing. I of course could not say I was hoping to slip into the VIP area with an important looking person, so I said that I was people watching. He said that he likes people watching too. I said that he was the most interesting person I had seen on the ship so far. He said I was interesting. He said that he was heading into the VIP area. I said WOW and mentioned wanting to meet Doctor Mercival and showed him my arm. He seemed interested and invited me to come with him to the presentation. I really did not want to go with him, but when a person with lots of power “invites” you to go with him it is not really a choice. I have lots of experience in this area, as Baron Thululu likes to “invite” me to some parties and if I don’t go he just makes my next mission that much more difficult. So I got into the elevator with this very important person, who I learn is Minister Voraxius, the Chief Most Scientist of Eraidu.

  As we are getting into the elevator I can sense with my tendrils (Lekku) that another person entered the elevator with us. I cannot see this person with my eyes, and nobody else seems to notice him. Whoever it is, I just ignore them. If they are invisible to sight then they are either an ally of the empire, in which case if I out them they would likely kill me, or they are an enemy of the empire, in which case if I out them they will die. Neither option I like. So I just ignore them.

  We make it into the presentation area, and Minister Voraxius goes up to Doctor Mercival and tells him that I am to be the test subject for the new brainwashing machine. I am like WHAT! But I don’t say anything and thankfully Doctor Mercival says that one of the other doctors, a Doctor Wolfram told him to choose a citizen as the test subject, and he had chosen his assistant to be brainwashed. That seems a bit harsh to do to an assistant, but I guess they must have been a bad assistant. Good news for her though is that Minister Voraxius does not like to be undermined. Instead of the assistant to Doctor Mercival, Minister Voraxius chose Doctor Wolfram as the test subject. By this point I had understood that this Voraxius character is downright blood thirsty. Not only was he casually willing to use me, an eleven and a half year old, as a test subject, but now he is using someone who did something he didn’t like as a test subject. I tried to stay away from him as much as I could after that. The presentation was starting so I stood off to the side with Roger. I looked around as Doctor Mercival set up. There were many fancy or important officials. There was Doctors Abbadon, Morticia, and Hoffstatter nearby. There was also this cat man with robotic legs that was balancing 3 plates piled high with every meat imaginable, he also looked a little sickly so maybe he needed the meat. I would have eaten too, but I didn’t want to do something that got me on the radar of Minister Voraxius any more than I already was. The presentation was a bit disturbing. Doctor Mercival calmly explained the brain destroying and compliance inducing process while Doctor Wolfram cried and moaned. If I wasn’t so good at pretending not to be bothered by things I might have done something stupid.

  After the presentation, Minister Voraxius introduced me to Doctor Mercival. I was a bit apprehensive at first because I just saw him casually brain melt someone. However once I showed him my mechanical arm we started talking tech and he even showed off the augmented legs on the cat person I learned was named Rico Bee. Once we got talking tech, he tried to out knowledge me. In the tech department there were only a few things he knew that I did not. Product of an actual education I am sure. Since I was so close to his level in the tech department he switched subjects to medicine which I know absolutely nothing about other than use a bandage and don’t smear it with grease. He seemed satisfied being smarter than an eleven and a half year old.

  Doctor Mercival said he needed to go back to his office to check on how Rico was doing and invited me along. Now the difference in invitation style between this Doctor and Minister Voraxius was like night and day. Minister Voraxius’s invitation was a polite demand, while Doctor Mercival’s invitation was a request. He was interested in my intelligence, not my ability to be a test subject. So I went with him and Rico. As a side note the invisible man had disappeared from my senses near the beginning of the presentation. So Me, Roger, Doctor Mercival, and Rico left the VIP area and were talking about how the augment process works on different types of people. A large Zabrak man walked past us and I asked Doctor Mercival how he would go about augmenting someone like him. Doctor Mercival said he would cut one of the nerves in the spine to take away feeling in the lower part of the body, and then he would use a saw to cut the subject up. A Saw!?! How barbaric. The Zabrak man heard us talking about him and commented angrily that it wasn’t polite to talk about other people like that. We were about to get into a light debate on the ethics of talking about other people when the Zabrak man excused himself rather abruptly and started walking off. This was rather rude, and a quick look in the direction he wanted to go I saw a young lady being escorted in cuffs by two soldiers. I was just going to let it be, as it was none of my business, but Doctor Mercival was a bit more put out by the Zabrak’s behavior. He called out to the Zabrak man and asked him about his business. It took a few times of calling out to him before he reacted, which when an imperial officer asks you to stop and you ignore him, that is a good way to land yourself in jail fast. Good thing for this Zabrak, Doctor Mercival is merciful. Ha, nice. When asked why the Zabrak was in such a hurry, he claimed that he was going to look at the stars. That has got to be one of the worst lies I have ever heard, there are windows all over the ship, not that I have looked out of them. My nausea could never handle that vast openness and the stars moving past us. If he wanted to get away quickly he should have said he had to find a bathroom, that always works. Nobody wants to deal with poop and pee all over the place.

  You could be reading stolen content. Head to Royal Road for the genuine story.

  Doctor Mercival wasn’t buying it either and asked him his name. This guy didn’t want to give his name either, it is like he grew up outside the empire and didn’t know the rules of how to work around the system. He finally gave his name as Titan. It sounded familiar, but I couldn’t place it. Doctor Mercival then asked again what his business was and he said he was looking for his cousin, a Sarah Ravenholt. Clearly a fake name. Mercival looked up the name on his tablet and found that there was no Sarah Ravenholt on the ship. I am just glad he didn’t look my name up on his tablet, because he would have found out that I am also technically not on the ship. Finally Titan told us that he was following some soldiers that had detained a girl and seemed to be harassing her. Upon hearing this Doctor Mercival generously decided to help him out, despite the fact that Titan had lied to his face multiple times, granted he did not lie very convincingly but it was lying all the same. As we started out towards where the girl was taken, I guess it would be called the Brig, Doctor Mercival decided that it would be a good idea to put me on his shoulders and carry me. Now I did not think this was a good idea. I tried to politely decline and suggested that it was a bad idea, but when a person with power decides they want you to do something, you do it. No matter how embarrassing it may be, nor how much the doctor struggled to lift me up, though I only weigh 64 pounds. I think he put all his muscles into his brain, not his brawn. Being up on his shoulders I couldn't help but marvel at how high the ceiling was. Even on his shoulders it was still so far up. Getting a look around I remembered back to the last time I was on somebody’s shoulders. It was almost 6 years ago. Father was taking me into town to buy a new power converter for Mom’s mixer that had broken down. Father had put me on his shoulders, his big and strong shoulders, and ran into town. I bounced up and down way up high on fathers shoulders.-- The mask slipped, The smile ran from my face, and a tear almost formed, but no. I must keep up the smile, always smile, they don’t know what you're thinking if you are always smiling. They don’t know what is inside your mind or behind your smile. The smile back in place, I just enjoyed the view. Well I enjoyed it for like ten more feet before Mercival put me down, wheezing and out of breath. Definitely not a physical person. Suddenly a wave of something hit me. The wind was knocked out of me and I felt my stomach heave. The contents of my stomach came up and I threw up all over the floor while this wave of nausea filled me.

  I couldn’t think clearly and suddenly this weird tentacled alien creature appeared right in front of me. Using my tendrils I could sense that the only other person that could see the creature was the cat man Rico. since the imperial couldn’t see it I tried to ignore it and focus on getting over the dizziness. This thing, whatever it was, it felt like when I get those random hunches. Like when the Akley Gang set a trap for me when I came back from Baron Thululu and I knew it would happen before it happened. It felt like that but a lot more intense. Then this apparition begins speaking. It says its name is Romulus and that if I didn’t want to die I needed to steal something.

  Then it seemed to be speaking to someone named Malek Shan, No idea who that is. The squiggly alien wasn’t going away and he seemed very persistent about getting someone to steal whatever it was saying that if we didn’t then we would all die. Now the last time I had ignored my instincts I had almost died, so this time I wasn’t going to ignore it. I somehow convinced Doctor Mercival to follow me and I followed Romulus. It took us to a vault in an area that even Doctor Mercival could not enter. The talkative doctor began chatting up the Stormtrooper. While he was distracted I hooked up to a wall socket and opened a vent nearby.

  I slipped in there while no one was looking and went towards the vault that Romulus was leading me towards. While I was there I heard Minister Voraxius talking to some of the other doctors and decide to give Doctor Abaddon the promotion over Doctor Mercival. Interesting, but not my business. I finally made it into the vault, not a very well protected vault at that. Inside were several items, one was some kind of crystal shard that gave off this kind of feeling… like a force. It felt similar to the wave of something that made me vomit earlier. The next item was this wooden statue or totem I guess, like some of the travelers have and pray to for a good voyage. The next item was just weird. It was this statue of a worm. Who prays to a worm? The plaque on the statue said Junaal. What a weird thing to keep in a vault. The last object was what Romulus brought me here for. It was a small data chip inside of a small transparent box with a lock on it. After checking for traps, of which there were none, a very lax security system. I began to pick the lock on the small box with the data chip in it. I couldn’t get it at first, then I realized I was twisting it the wrong way and I got it. It was just a small little data chip. I picked it up. I then turned to Romulus, and now that there were no witnesses I asked him straight up how exactly would we blow up if I didn’t steal this and take it to Eraidu. You want to know what this guy said? He said he had a hunch. That we might have blown up. Sometime. In the future. This freaky alien had me do all this dangerous stuff on this imperial cruise ship just on a hunch?!? I was about to lay into him about how much trouble I would be in if I was caught, when he mentioned that the data chip would lead to the first of the 7 Rombuses. The 7 Rombuses, a legend, a myth, even more unknown than that. I have only heard of it because some travelers back on Panna 7 talked about it. It is this story about collecting these 7 Rombuses and being granted a wish. I didn’t believe in it. I mean, a wish coming true? If wishes were true I would have had my parents back years ago. Just in case, I tucked the data chip into a little slot in my mechanical arm. ZAP!!! An electrical current shot through my arm into my body and brought me shuddering to the ground. I somehow managed not to cry out despite the overwhelming pain. Luckily it didn’t last long. I snapped at Romulus for not telling me the data chip was booby trapped. After getting back up I looked at the rest of the items in the room. I couldn’t just leave them here in this securityless room. It was as if I could hear the room say “Quin, please come steal us, we want to leave this very undefended place and stay with you” I couldn’t say no to that so I swiped them and went back up the ventilation shaft. Romulus had already vanished back to where he came from. I made it back outside the vault with no one knowing that I had done anything. Doctor Mercival even gave me a stim shot to help with the damage from the electrocution. Then suddenly over the loud speaker an alarm went off saying that a Jedi terrorist had been discovered on board. I said to the others around me “Good thing none of us are Jedi”

  End Session 1