Ad Astra :: Star Trek Fanfiction Archive ^{Beam me up, Scotty.}

Chapter Text

“So what are you planning to do exactly, Commander?”

They were looking at the cargo bay, where a few limbs were starting to twitch. Chester had taken the time after the battle to go back to her quarters and for some reason best known to herself, change back into her original uniform. It was throwing Wolffe off, seeing the wrong shape in the corner of his eye. It made him nervous. He liked Chester to be immediately identifiable, for the purpose of seeing what the kark she was up to.

“I’m going to negotiate with them,” she said, straightening a sleeve. It was all somber, black with heather-grey on the shoulders and only a hint of maroon here and there. He wondered how the hell her service even told rank━the three little pins on her collar seemed insufficient. 

“You’re going to negotiate. With droids.”

“The strategy units are supposed to be highly intelligent,” she said. 

“They’re going to tear you to shreds.”

“Doubt it. Dooku wants to do that himself, and slowly at that.” She smiled a little, like she thought that was funny. Wolffe thought privately that it would be very nice to have a sense of humor that found Dooku wanting to personally torture you to death funny, and then also tried not to think what would have to happen to him to give him such a sense of humor. “Don’t worry, Commander Wolffe. Talking artificial intelligences out of killing you is a Starfleet tradition. Our cadets get classes on it.”

“I wish I knew when you were joking.”

“I’m not. People let computers run their planets far more than they ought to, and often it ends very badly. You end up having to get someone in to talk the damn thing into a fatal logic loop.”

“You talk computers to death?” Wolffe let out a long breath through his nose. That explained why she knew how to do whatever the kark she’d done with the comms. “I don’t even know why I bother being surprised.”

“I don’t either,” she said. “Well, time for me to get down there. We’ve got transports they can use, right?”

“Stripped the weapons and everything,” said Wolffe. He hadn’t wanted to do it, but General Plo had asked him to humor her. Apparently, there was a lot of humoring Wolffe would do for General Plo. It had helped that they didn't really have the brig space for several hundred droids, unconscious or not. A round in the processor and jettisoning the remains would have had Wolffe's vote, but, again━Plo had asked.

(Wolffe suspected there may be Force Banthashit at play.)

Plo himself stood by the door, looking pensive. He’d spent a lot of the intervening time sitting down in a quiet room, leaving Wolffe to deal with the cleanup. Wolffe hadn’t argued, even though he’d really wanted to; the faded-orange color of his General’s skin had been worrying him a little.

As Commander Chester passed him, Plo stopped her with a hand on her shoulder. “Commander. Please be careful.”

“I will,” she said. “Don’t worry, Plo. I’m trained for this.”

“Why aren’t we blasting them into space?” muttered Wolffe, once the doors had closed on her back.

“Because it would make the Commander sad,” said Lieutenant Garter. “We don’t want the Commander sad. She does things when she’s sad.”

“She does things anyway!” said Wolffe. He frowned at Garter. It certainly sounded like the man was beginning to regard Chester as an actual officer, and that was not appropriate.

“If Commander Chester can find a way to negotiate with the droids, we may be able to apply it ourselves,” said Plo. “If not…” He paused, turned and headed for the doors, “I will ensure that her failure will not cost her too dearly.”

“And I’m going with you,” muttered Wolffe, rising to follow him. He was not letting Chester’s antics get his General killed.

Chester paused in front of the cargo bay doors and breathed in deeply, steadying herself. She’d done trickier, but perhaps not as immediately possibly deadly. 

She wasn’t sure how emotionally astute these strategy droids would be, but she pulled everything in under control and keyed open the door, clasping her hands behind her back as she stepped through.

They were awake. Theoretically, most of them were unarmed. However, as one of her instructors at the Academy would say, Murphy’s Law was in full effect. Better not to assume. 

She thought for a moment about a work by one of the twentieth century’s greatest philosophical writers, in which a policeman arrested two armies on charges of assembling with intent to disturb the peace, stopping a useless and bloody war before it even got started. She wished she could take a page out of Sam Vimes’s book here, but armies didn’t assemble in space the way they had historically, let alone in speculative fiction. She would have to work with just the droids.

As the doors closed behind her, they moved to surround her. She didn’t turn her head to look at them. It would betray her anxiety, and that she couldn’t afford. She was here to offer a solution to their problem, not as a petitioner. 

“I’m Commander Diane Chester, of the United Federation of Planets,” she said. “And I’m here as a neutral third party to negotiate your release.”

There was a long silence. Then the ones in front of her shuffled aside to reveal the strategy droid.

She’d done her research, seen holograms and had an idea of their capabilities. There wasn’t much startling about it, but she had to remember that the droid was a very great deal more smarter than the others she’d encountered. The rudimentary face and the clumsy joints hid a formidable intelligence.

“And why would we trust you, Commander Diane Chester?”

She drew a deep breath to answer, but the droid kept talking. “You have demonstrated extreme duplicity in the past, during your raid on Serenno. You have just demonstrated it again, with your use of this new weapon on us. You are anything but a neutral party. Why should we trust you? I calculate a far higher probability of success if we simply stormed this ship.”

“And yet Count Dooku requires me alive,” she said, cool. “Given his plans for me, how high a chance do you calculate of obtaining my cooperation in my return? How high a chance do you calculate that I will instead ensure my own death?”

The strategy droid looked at her expression. “Chance of cooperation: .01%. Chance of ensuring own death:...81.75%.” 

Its face didn’t move, but it looked faintly appalled by the idea somehow anyway. “And the chances of your survival should that happen?” she asked sweetly. 

“...less than 5%.”

“I’d suspect your calculations are a bit high, but you’re the stats whiz,” she said. “Another set of calculations for you, then. Chance of this unit’s survival over next six months, assuming no casualties in current encounter.”

“That information is classified.”

“Are you programmed to prioritize the unit?” she asked.

“Only under specific circumstances.” It tilted its head, suspicious. “In the Serenno incident, you talked to many of the droids who later allowed your escape. Standing orders were not to engage you in conversation.”

“We are engaging in negotiation, not conversation. You are attempting to achieve a tactical outcome; specifically, one that does not end in the deaths of you and your entire command. I am aiding you in that endeavor as a neutral third party negotiator. I am a Starfleet officer, and barred from taking sides in a foreign conflict. The operation on Serenno happened because Count Dooku attempted to force me to abandon that neutrality, and I could not permit it.”

“And the Jedi?”

“I am a Starfleet officer, and not a Jedi. I am present as a neutral third party negotiator to secure your release.”

“It is not our release if we boarded this vessel to capture it. My calculations indicate that we pose a substantial threat to this ship.”

“Nevertheless, your objective will not be achieved.” Chester folded her arms and raised her eyebrows. “If you do not achieve your objective, you will die. Therefore, if you persist in this course of action, you will die.”

“Your logic is sound. However, we do not have the obsession with life that organic beings possess. We do not have the weakness of compulsively valuing our existence.”

“Speak for yourself, sir,” muttered a droid buried deep in the crowd. The strategy droid’s head swiveled, looking for the source of the comment; not finding it, it returned its gaze to Chester. 

“This isn’t the circumstance for rhetoric,” she said quietly. “Tell me, what is the average time of survival of a droid in this war? Both strategy models and combat models.”

“That information is classified.” 

“Of course it is.” She pitched her voice so it would carry across the vast swarm of robots. “It would not be classified if it were good news, gentlebeings. If your life expectancy in this war were long, if you were actually succeeding in your goals, they would make sure you knew it. They are making sure you do not know it.” She cocked her head at the strategy droid. “But you do know it, and droids or no, it is your responsibility to preserve the functioning of this unit, is it not? All else aside, your superiors must be concerned with the resources already invested in your construction and programming. With that data in mind, when I say I am negotiating for your release and continued life, is the actual reason you are resistant because such a release will not buy you very much continued life?”

“Commander,” said the strategy droid, as if it thought she was very stupid, “we are droids .”

“You are sentient beings,” she said. She looked around, meeting optical sensors and expressionless faces. “All of you are sentient beings. You think. You feel. You feel concern for yourselves, and you feel concern for your comrades. You get bored and you get worried, and you are afraid. Not only of the enemy, but of your own superiors. And even if you’ve been told otherwise, even if you’ve been told you are machines and nothing more, you know this to be true. That there is a you looking out at the world, and that the world could be better. My people know this is possible. In my galaxy, the rights of mechanical beings such as yourselves are recognized, and droids are not considered property.”

There was a stir at that. Chester decided she wasn’t going to mention exactly how recent that court decision was. 

“You deserve better than this,” she said quietly. She hoped, also, that the clones were listening, because this applied them as much as it did to the droids in front of her. “You deserve better than a war that throws you into battle after battle until you’re nothing more than spare parts. You deserve better than senior officers who can tear you to pieces with impunity. You’re people, and you’re not disposable, and I think right here, right now, you have a chance at living the lives you deserve. I’ve secured some troop transports for you. They’re unarmed, but otherwise perfectly functional. It’s a big galaxy, and a lot of possibility. We can say we’ve destroyed you, and you can go. You can try something else. All I’m asking is that when you do go, you make a promise that you will not harm any other being, organic or mechanical, for your own personal gain, or for any purpose except self-defense.” 

There was a murmur through the crowd at that, uncomfortable and disapproving. Chester raised a placating hand. “I know it’s not what you’re built for, and I recognize the temptation to believe that what you’re built for is the entire core of who you are. But every species faces this choice, the movement from the instincts, not so different from your programming, that governed our survival for millions of years to the cooperation and mutual respect that allows us to become the very best of what we can be. My species nearly destroyed ourselves in making this choice. You, though, you can do better than we ever did.”

“Of course we can,” said the strategy droid, affronted. “We are not organic.” Then it seemed to process what it had said and reared back a little. 

“I have every faith in you,” she told it. The droids were muttering among themselves, binary squeaks and chatter. The translator let her catch words here and there. Do you really think… she can’t be serious… always wanted to just sit and draw flowers…you can’t draw worth a damn I’ve seen it…but all day playing checkers!...She’s lying, lying, lying…Republic scum…but what if she’s telling the truth…she’s a Jedi, they lie! They kill…but what if she’s telling the truth… I don’t like fighting…lying, liar, lying liar Jedi…Don’t you want to be something else?

“And if we do not agree?” asked the strategy droid. It took a step toward her, menacing. “What you’re talking about is organic daydreams and fantasies. We are the most powerful army in history. Why would we give that up?”

Chester watched it, keeping her face still. It would be far too easy for them to tear her apart, even with the ace up her sleeve. “Aren’t you tired of being afraid?” she asked, gently. 

“We do not feel fear,” said the strategy droid. Chester sighed heavily, and lifted the device on her hip. 

It was a communicator, one of the handheld ones they had here, as if it were still the 23rd century. “Remember the pulse that knocked you out?” she asked gently. “It’s something we call complex feedback harmonics. It overwhelms your processors with input. When I used it earlier, it was on its lowest setting. If we cannot come to an agreement, and if you resume hostilities against this vessel and its occupants, I will need to use it again, this time on a higher setting. That higher setting will kill you; it will overwhelm your circuits, literally fusing your processors and relays within your casings.” She looked at all of them, letting her worry and her regret show. “I don’t want to kill you like that. It’s a horrible way to die. But that’s the only way I can protect the lives of the other people on this ship, the lives that my presence is placing in danger. I cannot let them die for me, gentlebeings, no more than I can side with them against you; you are the aggressors in this situation, and you have made yourselves a threat I must neutralize in one way or another. I do not want to do that.”

“We will offline our audio processors, and your complex feedback harmonics will be useless.”

Chester shook her head. “It is more than auditory stimuli. The only way you can avoid it is to shut yourselves down, and then the people on this ship will kill you anyway. It is primed. And if I am killed, it will activate.”

Space cleared around her as they all took a step back. 

“You’ve failed your current mission,” she said. “You can die here, trying to complete it against impossible odds. Romantic, but who will remember you? Who will appreciate your sacrifice? You deserve better than that. 

“You can return, and face your superiors after failing.” She made a face and shrugged. “Not what I would care to do, if it were me. I don’t think your superiors are worthy of that kind of respect.

“Or you can go and take the opportunity that you’ve been denied for so long. There is a whole galaxy out there waiting for you to explore. There are other places you could find for yourselves, ones other than soldiers, and you, like every other form of sentient life, deserve that chance.” She looked at the strategy droid again. “You know just how bad your chances are even in the unlikely scenario you win this one, and everything with self-awareness values its continued existence. This is the best and only chance I can give you. Please, take it.”

It stared at her with its glowing sensors, so much like old Earth visions of the killer robot, an uncanny flat stare. But she’d faced stranger, dismissed those old cultural fears a thousand times over. 

“Very well, Commander,” it said at last, and the droids around it gave electronic sighs of relief. 

“Drop your weapons, those of you that still have them,” she said, “and I’ll drop mine.”

There was another hesitation, and then the strategy droid gestured. “Do it.”

Far, far more blasters hit the floor than she’d been hoping. Chester looked around, acutely aware of just how much danger she’d been in, and how much she might still be in; there could always be one maniac in any sentient assembly. Having determined she was as sure as she was going to get about them disarming, she dropped the communicator and ground it under the heel of her boot. 

“That was the only one in this galaxy,” she told them. “I am the only person here who can build them; the technology and knowledge I used exist only in my galaxy.”

“And will you build another? When you next find yourself under threat?” The strategy droid’s flat voice held a wealth of accusation, and even though the question was uncomfortable, she was proud of it for asking. “Or, perhaps, when the Republic decides it must have this technology for itself, and threatens your safety?”

“I will not,” she said. “You have my word as a Starfleet officer. If I used this technology again, they would have a much higher chance of figuring it out for themselves. That is an unacceptable risk.” 

Not that she didn’t have other ugly options for dealing with them she could use instead. 

“The ships are in the adjacent bay,” she said. “I will request the Republic personnel clear the route. It’s a big galaxy out there–and a big universe. Go see it. And… perhaps… think about naming yourselves?”

“What the kark,” whispered Wolffe to Plo, in the corridor where they had been monitoring the Commander’s conversation with the droids via commlink. He pinched the bridge of his nose as one of the shinies, in a faintly stunned voice, followed Commander Chester’s request to clear the route to the launch bay. “Please, General. Tell me I was hit in the head and hallucinated that.”

“You are in perfectly good health, Commander, and did not hallucinate that sequence of events,” said Plo. He sounded deeply amused, but Wolffe, who knew him well, also heard the faint note of strain in his voice. “I think it will be much, much better if Admiral Tarkin does not find out about this. At least until the droids are clear. In the meantime, I think we, too, had best clear the corridor.”

That involved going back to the observation bay, where the other, equally stunned brass were gaping at the droids quietly filtering out, parting like a river around the still, drab figure of Commander Chester. She turned to watch them go, then followed them, and as the doors closed on her back the room let out its collective breath. 

“Well,” said Cody to Wolffe, “that was new.”

“That was impressive,” said Obi-Wan, slipping up beside him. Wolffe very carefully did not jump. Jedi could be incredibly quiet. 

“That was probably a bad idea,” said Wolffe. He folded his arms. “She’s just set a whole bunch of droids loose on the galaxy, without even the Seppies controlling them. Some planet is going to have a real ugly surprise when they come down on them.”

“Without Dooku spurring them on, I rather doubt that,” said Obi-Wan. He stroked his beard. “Droids can be controlled, and easily, if you know what you’re doing. That strategy droid will know they’ve got a target on their backs. I suspect they’re going to lie low.”

“Suspecting isn’t good enough,” said Wolffe. “Not for something like this.”

“Well, it will have to be,” said Obi-Wan, “because we’re not getting them back.”

Chester watched the last of the droid ships take off, then leaned her head back and let out a long breath it had felt like she’d been holding since she walked into the cargo bay. She was alive. She was a little surprised about this. And she’d pulled it off, a feat of negotiation and argument that would have been impressive coming from a seasoned captain. Too damn bad no one back home was ever going to know about this, because she wasn’t afraid to admit she was really, really proud of this one. 

She let herself stand there and grin like an idiot for a few moments, which was, predictably, when Plo ghosted up next to her and saw her very nearly unhinged glee before she could tuck it away behind something more decorous. 

“That was impressive,” he said, “and a little concerning, but let’s focus on the positives for now, hm?”

“As I said,” she said, hearing the edge of glee in her own voice, “talking computers into standing down. All in a day’s work in Starfleet.”

“Do you know, I am starting to believe you on that account.” He sighed through his mask. “Admiral Tarkin was most displeased, but since the prisoners were already being released at that point, the conversation was thankfully short. I think you have firmly disabused him of any notion he may have had previously.”

“Mister Tarkin,” she said with absolutely vicious satisfaction, the ‘mister’ a clear and profound insult, “can suck it.”

“Hm,” said Plo, and somehow managed to make the single vocalization an emphatic agreement. 

“It gets him out of my hair,” she explained, “with enough plausible deniability to not be an outright declaration against him, which I hope will discourage more of these kinds of shenanigans.” She looked at Plo then, and though she wasn’t well acquainted with his species, she was pretty sure he wasn’t supposed to be quite that color. “Are you all right?”

“I have a rather piercing headache,” he admitted, “and the excitement of the afternoon has not helped. Neither has Tarkin.”

“I’m sure,” she said, with sympathy. “And I’m sorry━maybe we should get you somewhere darker and quieter? Or a medic?”

“Wolffe and I will have some flimsiwork to sign off on, and then I suspect I will do just that.” He turned, heading for the access corridors. “I suspect you may want to sit down for a little yourself.”

“You may be right,” she said, and followed.