We spent a week exploring the caves.
Some of them turned into genuine labyrinths, the kind you could get hopelessly lost in without much effort.
Good thing I had the Force pointing me the right way, and my Bodyguard, who never forgot anything and mapped the terrain as we went.
Turned out that stripped-down cartographer droid software I’d sprung for hadn’t been a waste of money after all.
For my purposes, it was more than enough.
My worries turned out to be justified — we weren’t the only ones smart enough to think of this place.
During our search, we came across three caves stuffed with different loot, ranging from pure junk to a decent stash of blasters and grenades.
We noted the spots and kept moving.
No point wasting time hauling any of it out now — better to strip it later, especially if we ended up settling somewhere else entirely.
Time went on.
Our food and battery supplies hadn’t run out yet, but they were getting close.
Despite how charming these places were, I still hadn’t found the right spot.
A little longer, and we’d have to head back to the city to restock before trying somewhere else.
That’s exactly what would’ve happened — except my Bodyguard stumbled onto something strange.
“Master, some nonsense is happening over there.”
“Come again?”
“According to the intergalactic general dictionary, ‘nonsense’ describes something meaningless and foolish, Master.”
“I know what the word means.
I’m asking what’s happening.”
“An anomaly.”
We just stared at each other, neither one getting anywhere.
“Okay.
Walk me through it — what exactly did you find?”
“Having descended to the lower level of the caves and found nothing of interest, I intended to continue on, in accordance with your household directives, which incidentally leave me with no standard working hours, and—”
“Get to the point, don’t get sidetracked.
You can list off all the labor-code violations I’ve committed against you some other time.”
Letting out a sound that was suspiciously close to a sigh, it went on.
“I noticed an inconsistency.
This level of the caves shouldn’t have any airflow, given the layout — but the dust on the floor was moving.
It’s an anomaly, and I can’t find an explanation for it.”
“Sounds interesting.
Lead the way — show me this little miracle of nature.”
Squeezing through the caves scraped up my cheek pretty badly in a couple of spots where I had to turn sideways just to fit.
Well, if there really was a good spot for a base down here, it’d be worth setting up.
Nobody was going to bother squeezing through all these passages on purpose.
The tunnels split off in a couple of places, and if it hadn’t been for my Bodyguard, I definitely wouldn’t have found the right way — or at least not nearly as fast.
Crawling through yet another narrow gap, I suddenly tumbled out into a room that was pitch black.
The only light came from the passage we’d come through, and that barely helped at all.
“How did you even make sense of anything in here?”
“We proud carriers of artificial intelligence can swap out our own parts.
A night-vision modifier pairs quite well with my chassis.” Visit g.com for the full chapter.
“And where exactly did you dig that up?”
“In the spare parts stock back at the workshop.”
“That was a rhetorical question, you don’t need to keep going.” I gave the cave one more once-over, found nothing suspicious, and turned back to my Bodyguard.
“Alright, go on — show me your anomaly.”
Following it into the far corner of the cave, where the darkness was absolute, I felt the faintest breath of air against my legs.
It was so weak I could’ve easily written it off as my imagination playing tricks in the pitch black.
“You’re right — I can feel a light current of air too.
Let’s check the wall.
Look for an opening the wind could be coming through.”
After crawling around the wall for about an hour, my fingers suddenly sank into a hollow — and instead of the rough stone I was expecting, they found cool metal.
Interesting.
Very interesting.
I tried running my fingers up, but hit stone.
Down, same thing.
What did that mean?
This wasn’t a crack in the rock — a chunk of masonry had fallen away.
What had it been covering?
No idea.
Did I need to squeeze into a spot hidden this well?
Yes.
There could be something valuable in there, and the Force was practically purring at the thought.
“Master, I’ve found something else strange.”
“What have you got?”
“The dust only shifts in this corner.
If I track the points where it moves most, we get a square roughly a meter on each side.
I suspect there may be a hidden hatch here.”
“I came to the same conclusion.
If there’s a door, there’s got to be a key to it somewhere.
I’ve got something metal here.
What’s your read on it?”
“Definitely not part of the wall.
Possibly a support, to keep the ceiling from caving in.”
“Or shielding for wires running from the hatch to a panel that opens the door.”
Another half hour of searching turned up a well-hidden panel disguised as a fake rock.
Pure luck, honestly.
Guess the Force was on my side today.
The longer I crawled around the floor near the hatch trying to find any kind of clue, the more my irritation built.
At some point, I lost my grip on myself entirely.
Anger boiled up and demanded release.
I swept my hand out without thinking about the consequences, meaning to smash a few of the rocks nearby.
I caught my breath, forced myself to calm down, and turned to examine the strange rock.
It turned out to be a well-disguised metal cube, bolted permanently to the floor.
Just a cube, no panels, nothing like that anywhere on it.
A hunk of metal sitting in some godforsaken cave, on a planet out in the Outer Rim.
Strange?
You have no idea.
This was clearly a key.
I could feel it.
I just had no idea what to do with it.
“Khran, if there’s no panel on top, on the side, or in back — where else could it be?”
“Hm.
Maybe it isn’t a control panel at all — maybe it’s an extension of some other system.
You sentients do love overcomplicating simple mechanisms.”
“No.
I can feel that this is a key to the hatch.”
“How nice it must be, not having to feel anything and only having to rely on facts.
If it is a key, then it isn’t accessible, because it’s located…”
“…Inside.”
The thought hit me like a lightning bolt.
“Exactly.
But that makes no sense.
Why would—”
“Be so kind as to stay quiet.
I just had a thought.”
Muttering something irritably about the oppression of mechanical sentients, my droid pointedly stepped off into the far corner.
I didn’t see it happen, but I heard every word of it clearly.
If the button was inside, that meant it could be pressed — but only with the Force.
Which immediately raised some uncomfortable questions about who exactly used to own this place.
I hoped I was wrong.
I reached out with the Force and shifted something inside the cube.
A faint mechanical whir followed, and the floor slid apart.
Dim light spilled up from the bottom of a long, vertical shaft.
“Forward, into the unknown, Khran.”
“The probability of your death has increased by one and a half percent.”
“After you, obviously.”
“Ah.
And this is why I only ever tell you the truth.”
The droid’s head vanished into the hatch.
A few seconds later, I followed it down.
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