Trapped Read Online Free Page A

message also included coordinates to be input into the hyperdrive. The TIE fighter was sending them somewhere. It was the strangest rescue Div had ever seen.
    Or it was a trap.

A kind face leans over him, and blond hair brushes his forehead. Her lips skim his cheek, and she smiles. She smells like zinthorn blossoms. Sleep now, she says in her soft, musical voice. He feels safe. He feels at home.
    X-7 jerked the speeder back in its lane, a split second before ramming into a blue airspeeder.
    â€œWatch it, you kreetle!” shouted the Trandoshan at the wheel, shaking a clawed fist at X-7’s jet-black speeder.
    â€œFocus,” X-7 murmured, weaving through the dense Coruscant traffic. One trillion people swarmed the surface of this planet-sized city, and at the moment, it seemed all of them were crowding the skylanes of Quadrant 472. Trast speeder trucks and Zzip Astral-8s and SoroSuubs of every shape and color jockeyed for position as they whizzed past the skyscrapers, burrowing into the city like gravel-maggots infesting a rotting muja fruit. X-7 didn’t possess the normal human inclination to prefer one environment over another. The mountains of Julio, the plains of Loped VII, the breathtaking cliffs of Kenosha, the bare, craggy surface of a lifeless moon—they were all the same to him. But if he had had a preference, this would be its opposite. The crystalline spires glowing in the blazing red sunset, the millions of windows glinting in the dying light, the layers upon layers of people covering every inch of the surface, buildings stretching untold kilometers into the sky—it was supposed to be the pride of the galaxy. It gave X-7 a headache.
    Navigating the skylanes demanded his full attention. But how was he supposed to concentrate with these wretched memories floating around in his head?
    â€œI dare you!” the boy cries.
    â€œNo, I dare you !” he shouts back.
    The boy laughs and steers his speeder bike straight for the edge of the ravine. He surges forward at top speed, then pulls up at the very last minute. The momentum carries him across. He waves from the other side. “Your turn now, you sprigging coward!”
    He is afraid. But he is also determined. He leans forward. Pushes the throttle. Wind thunders in his ears. The ground opens beneath him, and he is flying—
    â€œEnough!” X-7 shouted. Blind with rage, he rammed the speeder into the bright red sport speeder in front of him, knocking the sport into a wild spin across four levels of traffic. The sport crashed into a zip speeder, which smashed into two Flash speeders. Crushed and twisted durasteel spiraled through the air; drivers moaned and cried; sirens screamed. And X-7 quietly steered his heavily armored Serous into a narrow alleyway, fleeing the chaos he’d caused.
    The needless destruction made him feel better. And that was the problem.
    Feeling angry.
    Feeling better.
    Feeling anything at all. It wasn’t right. He wasn’t built for it. He was a tool, not a person. How many times had his commander burned that message into his brain? The Commander, who had taken X-7’s flesh-and-blood form and molded it into something better, something perfect. Scooped out his mind, purging it of memories, of emotions, of weakness, and turning his will to durasteel.
    All these years, X-7 would have felt grateful, if he could have felt anything at all.
    But now everything was going wrong. It had started with the feelings. Frustration, impatience, rage. They’d clouded his mind; that was why he hadn’t been able to complete his mission, he told himself. It was why Skywalker still lived. And the more often Skywalker foiled him, the angrier he grew.
    Then, as if the feelings had wedged open a long-sealed vault, the memories had arrived. Not even memories—just flashes, really. Nothing he could grab hold of or understand. A too-familiar scent. A few notes of a long-forgotten song. A voice. And now, it was