DEC WAS ALIVE. He wasn’t sure for how much longer, but for the moment, he was alive.

He didn’t know how long he and Sari had been guests of the droids; it could have been days or weeks. It felt like a lifetime. They were still in their filthy clothes, as droids weren’t terribly interested in hygiene. They’d been fed, though not much and not well. Sari was listless with hunger. Droids didn’t care about food, either.

They did seem to care about Dec and Sari. J-9A, the navigation droid who was apparently the leader, called Dec and Sari her guests. Sari had remarked, later, that J-9A gave it a sinister undertone, but Dec wasn’t sure. Yes, there was something abnormal about the droids. Partly, it was their pack behavior. Each droid had a distinct, somewhat broken-down personality, but they were united in purpose. As yet, Dec was unsure what that purpose was. Sari maintained that, though the nav droid was the leader, she and Dec were prisoners being held until the scary medical droids could experiment on them.

“Why would a droid experiment on a human?” Dec reasoned.

“I don’t know!” Sari cried. “Maybe they’ve already dismantled and rebuilt themselves and they’re looking for something new!”

That had been on what was probably the third day. They hadn’t been dismantled yet, so Dec considered them safe from that threat. The question remained: What did these droids want with them?

Earlier, J-9A had come into the small chamber in which they were being kept to let them know that the menace of the First Order was no longer upon them.

“What does that mean?” Dec asked.

J-9A took a weird sideways skittering step, something he noticed she did when challenged. These droids were broken.

“It means you are safe again,” she replied.

“Did you…kill them?” Dec asked.

“Did you take them apart to see how they tick?” Sari muttered.

Another sideways skitter. “People do not tick. People are filled with squishy bits and delicate meat chunks. We know how people work,” J-9A replied. She lifted then lowered her pneumatic shoulders in an odd shrug. “We possess a great deal of knowledge.” She cocked her head at Sari and her servos whirred. “Do you really think we’d need to dismantle a human to understand one?” J-9A laughed, a digital buzzing sound. “We have generations of knowledge in our permanent drives! We can access information about billions of subjects—”

An astromech beeped and booped atonally, interrupting J-9A. She responded, “I know they’re not interested. I am simply tired of being underestimated.” She moved to the door to leave with the astromech, saying, “Take a person apart, indeed. We allowed the shuttle pilot to escape back to Vodran. He believes you to be dead and will report as much to his commander. So, you see, you have nothing more to fear.” Before sliding closed the chamber door, she added, “From the First Order.”

Since that meeting, Dec and Sari had talked themselves weary trying to figure out what J-9A might have meant. Should they fear their captors? And if so, why had the droids helped them by getting the First Order off their tails? Or was there something else they should be afraid of, something even worse from which the droids were protecting them? The idea of that being true kept them from attempting an escape.

But maybe they were wrong. Either way, Dec reasoned, enough was enough. It was time to go.

“Sari, girl, we gotta get outta here.” Dec nudged her awake, and Sari pushed him away.

“I’m staying. I like droids.” She was just being difficult.

“Sari, even if there’s something out there, at least it’s out there. We can’t stay in here forever.”

“We don’t have a ship!” She lifted herself to a sitting position. “We’re stuck on this moon, which, to remind you, no one knows exists. So, I don’t see how getting out of here would make much difference, do you? We’d still be stuck.”

“Maybe I just want some fresh air,” Dec replied. “Think you can open this door?”

“Of course I can,” Sari scoffed. “I just don’t want to.”

“Sari, I’m serious.”

“You’re Dec Hansen. You’re never serious.”

“This time I am. There’s half a chance our friends are still alive down on that planet. Which means we gotta go get ’em.”

Sari shook her head. “I know,” she sighed. She managed to get to her feet. The lack of food and exercise had taken a greater toll on Sari than it had on Dec, and he worried for her. All the more reason to get out now.

Sari crossed the small chamber to the door. She was a hacking whiz. She’d hacked security doors all over the Resistance base for many of Dec’s mischievous pranks. The ramshackle security arrangement in this bunker shouldn’t present a challenge to Sari and her incredible skills. She searched the edge of the security door for a weak spot, found one, then dug her fingers underneath a wall panel and yanked it loose, exposing the wires and circuit board beneath. “Do you have any tools?” she asked.

“Why would I have tools?”

“Did you think I was just going to get this door opened with my mind?”

“I didn’t think about it,” Dec admitted.

She tossed the wall panel onto the floor then slumped down beside it. “Dec,” she grumbled.

“I thought you always had that kinda stuff on you!” he pleaded. “You’re like this super hacker person. All brains and know-how!”

“Yep,” Sari agreed. “But I’m not a sorcerer.”

Dec crossed his arms and stared at the security door. Finally, he said, “Okay,” as if he’d cracked the problem.

“What?”

“We do it the hard way.”

“What’s the—”

Before she could complete the question, Dec was jogging the short distance to the door and slamming himself into it. Hard. The wind knocked out of him, and he let out a loud “Oooomph!” Then he turned, walked back to where he’d been, and did it again. Smack! “Ooomph!”

“Dec,” Sari began.

He threw himself into the door again. It didn’t budge.

“Dec,” she repeated. He was going to knock himself unconscious if he wasn’t careful.

Smack! “Ooomph!”

“Dec!” she finally shouted. He held up a finger, panted a few times, and then again threw himself at the door. Smack! “Oomph!” Nothing.

Sari stood again, reached out a long arm, and held Dec back as he readied for another run. Anchoring him in place, she stepped forward and gave the door a mighty kick. Sari was big and strong and, while she didn’t always like to use her strength, she’d do pretty much anything for her friends, especially Dec. The door fell outward with a thunderous slam, and all of a sudden their freedom was before them.

“Thank you,” Dec said.

“You’re welcome.”

“Let’s go.”

“Go where?” Sari asked, peering into the dark beyond the door.

“I reckon we’ll find out.”