Star Wars: I Am a Slave ✓

Chapter 28 - Processing Unit

For a few months, Rey continued approaching the freighter crews for passage off the planet, but each time she was either denied outright or something would happen to the crew or ship itself, preventing her escape. Four months in, she had lost enough of her portions to not even try anymore.

A year later, Rey's stockpile of portions had dwindled to about one year's worth left. She had traded some for a generator and a small lamp. She had eaten a lot, as much of her scavenging for the last few months had yielded only scrap metal for melting. Some had gone for new clothes as her old ones worn out and she outgrew them. Some had gone to fuel for her speeder, fuel for her stove, fuel for her generator.

Her body was changing before her eyes. She was looking more and more like a woman and less as a girl. The only thing she refused to change was her hairstyle. She knew one day her family would find her. She kept her hairstyle so they would recognize her. She still was not sure if she would recognize them. She hoped she would, but the memories of her mother were growing fainter. She never understood why she thought of her family as more than just her mother. She always referred to her family as "them" in her head, but she only ever remembered her mother.

Today she was heading out before dawn to remove a computer system from the Inflictor. It seemed to work properly, but without a generator, there was no way she could test it in the dilapidated ship. Rey pulled on her boots, shaking the sand out of them. She grabbed her staff and satchel before heading out on her speeder.

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When she reached the Inflictor, she found a few crews were already working, even though the sun had yet to rise. This ship was much hotter during the day than the Ravager had ever got. Someone said that the Ravager, when it still had power generators, would fire up at night. All the lights would shine and the life-support systems would activate. They would shut down just as the sun would dawn. This scavenger believed it was ghosts. The Inflictor did not have any generators, but whether it had any ghosts was still to be determined.

Rey crawled into the access hole that was blasted into the hull. As she made her way down the sloping decks, holding onto the ropes strung throughout the ship, one of the scavengers yelled at her, "Watch out! Don't go onto the crew deck. Something's down there!"

Rey looked at him and yelled back, "I don't believe in ghosts!" Rey pulled herself through a partially open blast door and started in the third crewman's quarters on the left. This was a dormitory of sorts, with racks for 18 crew members. Gear lockers tipped against the bunks or blocked the path altogether. Stormtrooper armor littered the room. The console Rey was looking for was across the debris at the other end of the room.

She climbed over the debris and made it to the console. She unhooked the cabling and hauled the viewscreen out first. Then she grabbed the input devices and cabling. And lastly she struggled with the large processing unit, hauling it over the bunks and toppled gear lockers to the entrance.

It took her three separate trips to haul the devices up the raked decks to her speeder. By the time she reached the speeder the last time, her mouth was parched, and she was hungry. She tapped the last few drops of water out of her canteen and headed home to the walker.

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After eating a meal and drinking more water, Rey brought the computer inside. She set it up near the generator, brushing all of the accumulated sand and dust from it. She hooked it up again, plugged it in, and waited for the start-up sequence to finish. She had no idea what to expect.

She was disappointed when a security screen popped up asking for a password. Rey tried different words randomly, but nothing worked—not that she was surprised. In anger she banged on the computer monitor and kicked the processing unit. All of a sudden the entire unit shutdown.

"Figures. Not that you were any good to me anyway! A whole day's work wasted on this piece of junk!" moaned Rey as she readied herself for bed. She was going to sleep a few hours and then head back out to the Inflictor.

Rey's sleep was disturbed with dreams, dreams of the man again. She felt like she knew him. He was trying to tell her something, but she could not understand him. He kept saying a few letters and numbers over and over to her. That was the whole dream, for what must have been hours, just "Vev-aurek-dorn-two-one-esk-resh-three-seven."

She awoke reciting the code, "Vev-aurek-dorn-two-one-esk-resh-three-seven." Her head ached and her stomach growled again. After drinking some water and preparing a portion, her eyes fell on the console again. While she looked at it, it started up of its own accord, just as it had shut down the night before.

She sat down, at peace. She knew the security code. That was what the man was telling her in the dream last night. She punched in, "Vev-aurek-dorn-two-one-esk-resh-three-seven."

The console sprang to life bringing up a menu which seemed very familiar to her, but Rey had never used a computer before—at least not that she could remember. The menu listed flight simulation, language training, and Imperial operations. Rey pressed flight simulation. An array of ships came up grouped by class: Imperial fighters, cruisers, star destroyers, shuttles, troop transports; civilian freighters; Rebel fighters, cruisers, gunships, troop transports. Rey chose freighters.

The list populated to a seemingly endless selection. There was the Ghtroc line. She had seen one of the 720's disabled in the graveyard before. Then there was the Corellian line. She scrolled through those and found the one she was looking for: the YT-1300.

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