Марта Уэллс: From a Certain Point of View

Maela went back to her screen. She knew this work wasn’t sought-after. That it was either washouts like Azier or those who hadn’t managed to climb up the ranks yet like Dirjo. But she had specifically requested it and had no desire to move elsewhere in the Empire’s service. She slipped her hand into her pocket and rubbed the smooth, rounded surface of a probe droid’s main eye. How many times had she traced these eyes, longing to see what they saw? Imagined flinging herself through the reaches of space alongside them to uncover sights untold?

And now here she was. As close as she could get. The fates and visions of tens of thousands of probe droids at her fingertips. It was an actual dream come true.

For her, at least.

—

“No,” her mother said, not bothering to take off her mirrored goggles. “Absolutely not.”

Maela felt the pout taking over her face, which made her angry. She was past pouting age, and definitely past being teased for the way her lips refused to allow her to hide any emotions.

“It’s not fair,” she said, gesturing at the prototype her mother was tinkering with. “There’s so much out there, and they see everything, and all I see is this factory.” Maela leaned close, looking at her distorted reflection in the probe droid’s main eye. She knew it wasn’t an eye, not really, but she always thought of it that way. She would walk down the lines of droids, hanging like fruit from mechanical vines, making certain she saw herself in every single eye. That way, when they went out into the galaxy, flung to places and planets she would never visit, at least part of her would be taken. A ghost in her mother’s machines.

“You think you’ll see so much, working for the Empire?” Her mother made a face like she had a bad taste in her mouth. “You don’t want any part of them.”

“How can you say that?” Maela threw her hands in the air, astounded at her mother’s hypocrisy. “You work for them!”

“I do not work for them. I design and manufacture droids. Which is not an easy business to be in after the Clone Wars.” She sighed, leaning back and running her hands through her wild curls. They were more gray than black now, and Maela knew beneath the goggles she’d see the fine lines of age slowly claiming all the skin around her mother’s eyes. “This is what I’m good at. It’s what keeps our family safe.”

“And keeps us locked up here on this lifeless planet in this lifeless factory!” Maela kicked the table, and the prototype parts went skittering away. “At least if I were working with the Empire, I’d be doing something.”

“Yes,” her mother said, in a tone like a door sliding shut. “You would be doing many things.” She walked away, leaving Maela alone with the metal that was not yet a droid.

Maela picked up the eye and stared at her reflection. She didn’t want to be a ghost, a memory, a prisoner. The eye fit perfectly in her pocket, tucked alongside the decision Maela had made. She would send herself out into the galaxy, flung to new and unknown destinations by the same Empire that claimed these droids.

—

Maela’s eyes were grainy, so dry she could hear her eyelids click when she blinked. She didn’t know how long she had been watching footage, dismissing transmissions that offered no useful information. The others had wandered out at some point, to eat or sleep, she didn’t know.

She didn’t need her mother’s droids to carry her ghost into the galaxy, because she was connected to them now. They were at her fingertips, and she stared out through them at countless new sights. She was everywhere.

Plants as tall as buildings, towering overhead, glowing in colors human eyes couldn’t have discerned. Desertscapes so barren she could feel her throat parching just looking at them. A depthless ocean, eyes and teeth and fins exploring her as she sank into darkness. World after world after world, and she was seeing them all.

She was so blinded by the infinite white ice of the newest planet that she almost missed it.

“Someone made those,” she whispered, tracing the even, symmetrical mounds rising out of the snow. They were metal, and, according to the droid, they were generating power. Which meant they were being used. But before she could make the connection active and direct the droid, the screen flashed and then the feed was dead.

Her droid had self-destructed. Which could only mean it had been attacked. Maela’s heart began racing. This was it. She had found what they were looking for, she was certain.

She pushed her comm. “Dirjo, I’ve got them.”

His answer crackled with static and sleepiness. “Got what?”

“The Rebellion.”

Within minutes he was at her shoulder, leaning over. The rest of the team had joined them, the space too tight to accommodate all of them at her station. “Are you certain?” Dirjo asked. “There are a lot of settlements out there.”

“Not on Hoth. The only things I’ve found are snow and the occasional animal.” She had gone over the entire feed from the droid, searching backward, but other than the generators and the attack, all she had found was snow, ice, and lumbering beasts that ran on two legs, with small arms and powerful, thick tails. They were cute, actually. She had spent more time looking over the images of a herd, imagining what they must sound like, what their fur would feel like, how those curling horns would function, than she had worrying about the Rebellion.

“Besides,” she said, trying to focus, “those generators are too big for a settlement. And someone shot at the droid.” That one hurt. She wanted the connection back. She didn’t want her droid, her eyes, lying dead in the snow.

Dirjo bit his lip, frowning. “If we’re wrong…”

“If we’re wrong, then we keep looking.”

Azier snorted. “Being wrong in the Empire is never that simple.”

Maela didn’t care. She was certain she had found the Rebellion. And it felt right, that she was the one who had succeeded. Her droids, her eyes. All that time she had spent wishing and putting herself inside them. It had worked.

Dirjo took a deep breath, then nodded. “I’ll send it to Piett.” Maela moved out of the way as Dirjo took over her station.

Lorem frowned. “Maela is the one who found it. She should get the credit.”

“It’s not about credit,” Dirjo said. “It’s about the Empire.”

“If it’s not about credit, then why are you insisting on being the one to personally send it to Piett?” Azier muttered.

Maela had already moved to another station. If it turned out she was wrong, they would need to keep looking. So she might as well get a head start on it. But she couldn’t stop thinking about those creatures she had seen. Or the flash of light and then the end of the transmission. A violent end for her mother’s creation, and an abrupt end to her trip to Hoth.

While everyone was distracted waiting to hear from Piett, Maela searched through countless transmissions. A surge of triumph flooded her when she found it: Another probe droid had crashed into Hoth. Which meant that she could still explore.

She shouldn’t. Either Hoth was their target or it wasn’t, and she should move on.

But Hoth felt more real than anywhere else she had been. What she had seen there mattered, and she was irrationally angry at the abrupt end of the transmission. Probe droids were lost all the time. But this one had been destroyed.

Later—it was hard for her to know how long, because she was frantically watching transmissions, hoping for something special, trying to forget how badly she wanted to return to Hoth—word came from the Executor.

“Yes, sir. Thank you, sir.” Dirjo leaned against the workstation, relief and smug joy warring for dominance on his face. “We were right. They’re on Hoth.”