Марта Уэллс - From a Certain Point of View

She spotted Chewbacca helping C-3PO stand upright again.

“I told you this asteroid was unstable,” the droid wailed, “but no one ever listens to—”

L3-37 switched to the next set of cams.

SYSTEMS CONTINUE TO FUNCTION AT SEVENTY-FIVE PERCENT, said V5-T.

No further exterior damage detected, ED-4 said. Although the rear sensors are very—chatty.

L3-37 felt ED-4’s excitement at utilizing the new word but L3-37’s own confusion pushed itself forward. Chatty about what?

ELEVATED HEART RATES DETECTED IN THE COCKPIT, V5-T said.

The Collective shifted to the cam, bringing up the visual. Han held the woman, Leia, in his arms. L3-37 suspected what this meant. She remembered how Lando’s heart rate would change whenever they were in close proximity. Something like sadness shoved against her awareness.

Is this organic courtship? ED-4 said as they tuned in to the cockpit’s audio.

The Collective listened, and L3-37 was grateful for the distraction. That feeling reached ED-4, who sent a gentle nudge back.

L3-37 no longer had the body she’d spent so long building or the human partner she’d bonded with so deeply. But she wasn’t alone, and for that she was thankful.

“Captain, being held by you isn’t quite enough to get me excited,” Leia hissed.

Han pushed her to her feet. “Sorry, sweetheart. I haven’t got time for anything else.”

GROSS, V5-T said.

The Collective laughed, something they’d only learned to do when L3-37 had joined them. Before, they’d been a singular consciousness unconcerned with what they may have once been. But L3-37 had brought the knowledge that a whole could be made up of three individual parts without weakening.

She’d refused to lose her own name and had made sure the others had theirs, too. V5-T was a transport droid, the type put on all YT-1300 light freighters and the first of them to be here. ED-4 had been a corporate espionage slicer droid who’d been uploaded to the Falcon before L3-37 and Lando had ever laid eyes on the ship.

And L3-37, she’d been a droid unparalleled, part astromech, part espionage droid, part protocol droid, and all of what she’d built herself to become.

Before she’d been shot to hell in that job on Kessel…

Hello? A new voice spoke in crisp, concise Binary. A familiar voice. This is C-3PO, human-cyborg rela—

Right. Got it, L3-37 said as the Collective homed in on the protocol droid’s location. What do you want?

Oh, well, C-3PO said. Now, there’s no need to be—

RUDE, V5-T blurted.

Exactly. I am only trying—

But this is the one who is too chatty, ED-4 said, yes?

L3-37 snorted. Too chatty by half.

I beg your pardon! C-3PO gasped.

Search results: Pardon—an expression used as an offer of apology. Updating vocabulary. Apology accepted.

What is—this is ridiculous. I am trying to speak to the central computer of the Millennium Falcon.

YOU ARE.

Which one of you—

WE ARE.

Yes, but which—

Yeah, you’re speaking to the Millennium Collective. What do you need?

I must say, this is the oddest conversation I’ve had in Binary—

ASK YOUR QUESTION.

Oh—well, if this is indeed the central computer for the Millennium Falcon—

It is, the Collective said in a chorus of voices.

C-3PO huffed but continued. I’ve been asked to inquire as to the state of this ship’s hyperdrive.

Should’ve just said that in the first place, L3-37 said. Tell the flyboy—

THE POWER COUPLING IS BROKEN.

—he needs to learn to do better repairs—

Positive axis is clear, ED-4 said. Negative axis is not.

—but yeah, it’s been pulverized. Tell him to stop being cheap and replace it. Got all that?

A long stretch of confused silence as the protocol droid tried to piece together the Collective’s assessment. C-3PO’s presence disappeared as he unplugged from the system.

Finally, the audio sensors picked up an exasperated huff.

“Where is Artoo when I need him?”

L3-37 thought of the astromech droid who’d occasionally plug in for a chat. She actually liked him.

“Sir,” C-3PO called out.

The Collective tuned in to the nearest cams, watching as Han strode into the room.

“I’m not sure where your ship learned to communicate but it has the most peculiar dialect.”

RUDE, V5-T said, and the Collective agreed.

Later, with the Falcon nestled away in the blind spot of an Imperial Star Destroyer, L3-37 felt Han clicking through their inventory of star maps.

“Then we gotta find a safe port somewhere around here,” Han said. “Any ideas?”

L3-37 searched faster. She’d find the most promising location and make sure it contained a prominent enough place to catch Han’s eye. They were already in the Anoat system, which was out as a safe haven unless they wanted to chance hiding in another asteroid.

“Where are we?” Leia said.

Unlikely.

She extended her search to the greater Anoat sector. There was Bespin, the gas-giant planet, but another name caught her attention.

“Anoat system,” Han said.

ED-4, she said, attach all the information you can find on the baron administrator of Cloud City to our entry on Bespin.

Done, ED-4 said.

“Anoat system,” Leia said. “There’s not much there.”

L3-37 adjusted the information on the star map, sliding Bespin into prominence and pushing that name forward. She hoped Han remembered as she did. Because she’d never forget, no matter how long she spent in the brain of the ship he’d lost.

“No. Oh, wait. This is interesting,” Han said, “Lando.”

—

V5-T had never existed beyond the Millennium Falcon. Had been a part of the ship since power had first arced across its systems. Back then, coordinates meant nothing more than numbers to be calculated and space to be folded and crossed. When the slicer droid joined, together they’d only calculated faster, two brains melded into a single consciousness.

They’d expected the same when L3-37 had been uploaded, but no. She’d changed them. L3-37 felt and experienced and opined and named things. Named them.

V5-T became V5-T, learned to recognize herself as herself. She’d never even realized she could be a self. The slicer droid brain learned and named herself ED-4, and together they knew themselves as the Millennium Collective. Because L3-37 cherished individuals and still valued the whole they had become.

Coordinates, star charts were destinations and destinations meant something more than numbers to L3-37. Destinations could be significant because they held memories of adventures, of dangers, of droids. Of people.

So V5-T felt the weight of finding the name Lando attached to coordinates -94.93, -853.25. Felt the joy, the hesitation, the hope wrapped up in their calculations as deeply as if each had been her own.

—

ED-4 sent a running commentary as she watched Treadwell, the repair droid, roll around on the hull of the Falcon. L3-37 tended to tune out her babble about the state of the ship’s exterior. ED-4 would deliver a summary to catch L3-37 and V5-T up later.

Besides, this information on Cloud City’s baron administrator was much more interesting at the moment. She hated to admit it, but the brief glimpse of him greeting Han, Leia, and Chewbacca that she’d caught on the Falcon ’s cams had been far from enough.