Elle was standing outside the bar. 
Of course, it wasn’t Elle. Stella knew that. She knew all the goodness, all the humor, all the joy that beat in Elle’s mechanical heart was long gone. Filtered out, diluted into these things, these army of troopers that Zartan had created using Elle’s memory banks, Elle’s model. Turned that policeman’s determination and drive that he’d used for so many years hunting Stella, that inability to not give up on her and let her die into something else. Into the perfect unstoppable killing machines.

 “Say, buddy, you got a light?” Stella asked, stepping out from the darkened entrance of the bar and into the glowing light of the twin suns. The Elle thing turned. It’s didn’t say, no, I do not have a light. I do not smoke. You do not smoke either, Stella Star. That makes no sense. No, there was reply in the familiar twang of Elle’s voice that Stella found so charming, so comforting, like the morning glow over a field. This Elle robot, none of the Elle robots that Stella had encountered so far said anything. They just acted and reacted and this one was bringing it’s gun up quickly but too late, Stella’s blaster already firing, searing the thing’s arm off. Stella was jumping, rolling past the robot, scooping it’s fallen arm up in the process. 

Then she was turning, smashing the severed weight of it against the back of the imposter Elle’s head, sending it careening to the ground. Stella spent ten minutes beating the last of the mechanical life out of the Elle trooper with it’s own arm. She finally stood, wiping the sweat from her forehead and smiling. 

Today, today was going to be a good day. 

-excerpt from 'How Stella Got Her Groove Back - The Revenge of Stella Star'
 by Glen Alan Hamilton

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