My crew went to great lengths to secure an artifact so valuable, and you, no doubt, are planning on doing something extraordinarily stupid with it—

APHRA:

What, like use it?

MAZ KANATA (on comm):

Exactly.

APHRA:

Okay. Now this is getting downright personal. Is there no sisterhood among rogues anymore? Tell ya what, why don’t we settle in at one of those backwater holes you love so much, have a drink, talk this out like the proper ladies we are—

Another boom rocks Aphra’s ship. Her tinkering gets even more furious, more desperate.

APHRA:

That was very un ladylike, Maz.

The Ark Angel lets out a series of frantic beeps.

APHRA:

Now my life support’s failing, I probably only have a few breaths left in me, I’m going to die out here because you’re convinced I took something from you and, worse yet, that I have some sort of nefarious plan for it—

MAZ KANATA (on comm):

You underestimate how well I—or anyone who’s spoken to you for more than five seconds—know you.

APHRA:

Fine! Of course I took it! And of course I’m going to use it! You pirates think you understand the value of all these artifacts you so carelessly pilfer, but all you really understand is that they’re old, and that means they need to be sold to a dusty old museum where they rot away into nothing. And all without ever being used for their true purpose, fulfilling their true potential—out there in the galaxy, having the extraordinary adventures they were meant for.

I mean. How would you like it if someone put you in a museum, Maz?

MAZ KANATA (on comm):

You are telling me that in your custody, the antique stealth microdroid dust is going to have adventures? Rather than merely being sold to the highest bidder?

APHRA:

Would it…make you stop shooting at me if that was the case?

A beat as Maz considers—or at least pretends to.

MAZ KANATA (on comm):

Probably not.

Another loud boom rocks Aphra’s ship.

APHRA:

That’s what I figured. And that’s why…I also stole—er, liberated something else from your pirating spoils! The cutest little astromech scraps…so shiny, and just sitting there, nestled next to the microdroid dust. I swear, they started talking to me. Wanted me to take ’em home.

And I like the shiny, so I obliged.

MAZ KANATA (on comm):

[genuinely puzzled]

The…astromech scraps? Those were salvaged from a Corellian junkyard, but they were so rusty, so banged up and broken, even our best techs couldn’t do anything with them. They’re just…trash.

APHRA:

Yeah, I love trash. Watch what happens when I place my shiny new astromech bit just so in my central operating system.

We hear a decisive click as Aphra places the droid part in her control panel.

APHRA: