By David C. Daoust
The surrounding havoc was like none other Colin had ever witnessed.
He had just been released from lockup, when the news hit of the assault drones on the horizon. They returned his hand gun and shotgun upon being released, both confiscated by the Otomo security force long before he ever stole the speeder -returned with more than one wry comment on how he would need them. At the time, beyond a few distant explosions, Colin wasn’t sure what they meant. Though the hours later, Colin had found the small port town of Grady, turn into a battle zone.
Colin found himself wide eyed, heart pumping, clutching at his shotgun, with very little faith it had the stopping power to affect the drones, as he traversed such an unusual environment. People were true to being; Colin witnessed more than one looter, and the meager police force he’d left behind, were too busy trying to quell the assault to put an end to the looting. Not that Colin would intervene.
Many of the townsfolk that were at the Barracks-ship, in protest to the hacked news feed, had been scattered throughout the town center, with nowhere to go to protect themselves. Many of the droids seemed to try and organize the mess, their small electronic voices going unheard, for the most part, by the frantic population. And that was of the droids trying to calm the people, still more, were handling the drones.
Truly, Colin had never witnessed droids go to war. It was as though the world turned upside down. Most droids were not built for such action, and some of the means in which they attacked were downright comical. More than one food dispenser shot can after can into the roving battle drones, whilst those droids that spent their days loading and unloading ships, seemed to try and clobber the Drones with anything heavy. Some such droids, so large, they were taking up small vehicles to hurl at the attackers. Colin could only wonder what his robot ‘line’, that he had become accustomed to working with, was doing at the moment, and imagined it snaked around a roving drone, choking the life out of it.
It was not long after that Colin came across the flipped land speeder in the debris, he found a man thrown free of the wreck, choking on the black mucus that was recently so common on the small desert moon.
The man could barely speak, and the amount of mucus coming from his mouth was disgusting, though Colin made out what he was trying to communicate to him, as the sick man gestured frantically towards the vehicle.
Colin clutched his shotgun tight as he went around to the other side of the wrecked speeder, to find the older woman half hanging out the side of the vehicle, with more than one bruise. Colin dropped the shotgun and helped her as she regained consciousness and started to move.
“What?”The woman asked, taking in her surroundings, even shoving Colin away as her eyes focused on him, and realized she did not recognize him. This confusion did not last long though, and she accepted his help, her eyes searched the debris, “Where’s my son?”
“He’s here,” Colin could only assume she meant the choking man, he couldn’t truly say he was ok, but he helped the woman around the vehicle. Upon the sight of him, she suddenly rushed to his side.
“My goodness!” the woman exclaimed as the man coughed up more and more of the black mucus, then asked, “…didn’t you take your meds?”
