"To anyone who is receiving this emergency transmission, please, help," the tinny, robotic voice said from the Solo Quest's comm. "My master has just died of a fatal heart attack and I am not programmed to pilot the ship on which I am aboard nor am I able to engage the hyperdrive, much less input any navigational coordinates. This is Corellian Cargo Ship Number 5348456. I, protocol droid TC-57, am stranded with much needed foodstuffs for Selvaris. Again, please, help."

Jacen had received this emergency broadcast only mere hours after leaving Dathomir, where he had just completed his stay of the Raining Leaves clan. While he enjoyed his time there, he found that he did not learn as much from them as he had from the likes of the Baran Do Sages of Dorin or from the Aing-Tii monks of the Kathol Rift. Jacen had found the Dathomiri Witches with whom he had associated to be too mired in traditional ways of thinking that were not unlike the Jedi Order, and so he came away from them feeling... less than fulfilled on both an intellectual level and a spiritual level.

But now was not the time to reminisce about the times he had on his sojourn, which had reached its third year. Now was the time to investigate and help out this apparently stranded droid.

The emergency broadcast had brought Jacen to a system not far away from the world of Bakura, which was very far out even for the Outer Rim. As he had been approaching the source of the broadcast mere hours before, Jacen had his suspicions. For him, it wasn't the first time that a ruse like this had been attempted by pirates who were attempting to scam and subsequently raid good samaritans under the pretense of requiring help.

Fortunately for Jacen, he had the Force on his side, and his senses were able to tell him of the intentions of those who were aboard seemingly stranded craft. Even those pirates who had used droids to broadcast emergency signals from lone ships and then have other ships drop out of hyperspace to ambush whoever had come by to help were foiled by Jacen's abilities as a Force-using pilot.

While it was true that he did not have the same level of skill in flight as his twin sister Jaina or his late younger brother Anakin, he still had inherited a fair deal of his father Han's ability to pilot a starship, or in this case a modified YT-1300, to repel anyone who tried to give him a hard time. As such, he had been able to outmaneuver whoever had attempted to ambush him long enough to either destroy his enemies or disable them with some well-placed laser shots. It wasn't long after that he would have signalled the nearest authorities to bring the surviving pirates, if there were any, into the proper custody.

In the present, having just dropped out of hyperspace near the source of the stranded droid's emergency broadcast, Jacen waited a few minutes before responding. When no other ships had unexpectedly entered the system, he finally opened a channel to TC-57.

"This is Captain Jacen Solo of the YT-1300 freighter Solo Quest," he stated. "I'm here to help."

"Captain Solo," TC-57 said with relief, "thank the maker!" Jacen couldn't help but grin at that inadvertent reminder of one of C-3PO's catchphrases. "Would you please be so kind as to come aboard and do whatever it is you organics do to get this ship to Selvaris? As I'm sure you heard from my emergency broadcast, I'm unable to pilot this ship or even engage the hyperdrive-"

"Much less input any hyperspace coordinates," Jacen interrupted. "Yes, I heard. Kind of unfair of your master to put such limitations in your programming, isn't it?" He managed to hide his suspicions from his tone as he piloted the Solo Quest forward toward the cargo ship.

"It's not in my programming to judge, Captain Solo," TC-57 responded astutely. "Only to serve in the best ways that I can within the limited parameters of my programming."

"Uh-huh," Jacen said as he aligned the Quest's airlock with the other vessel's airlock. As the two ships were joined to allow Jacen access into the droid's spacecraft, he kept looking out his forward viewport for any signs of unexpected guests. He also kept his Force-senses alert, naturally.

Those same Force-senses were still on alert once he had finally boarded the cargo ship and met up with TC-57, a red-tinted protocol droid, in the vessel's short access corridor.

"If you will follow me to the cockpit, please, sir," the droid said before turning around and heading for his stated destination.

Jacen did as TC-57 requested and nearly gagged upon reaching the cockpit. Holding a hand over his mouth to withhold the gorge there from spilling onto the deck, Jacen looked at the already-rotting, and obviously very rank, corpse of the cargo ship's elderly male human pilot sitting in his titular station.

After choking his lunch back down, Jacen turned back to TC-57 and asked, "How long has he been dead?" And why didn't you bother stowing him away somewhere where the smell wouldn't be so terrible for anyone who would've saved you? He had been too polite to ask that question and left it in his thoughts as he then covered up his nose to breathe through his mouth.

"Only for a day, sir," TC-57 replied.

"A day?" Jacen asked. "He already smells that bad... after... a day?"

At the word "bad," Jacen had started to feel dizzy. And once he had finished that last sentence, he collapsed to his side, his vision now blurry.

From what little he could make out through that blur, though, he saw the dead cargo ship pilot rise up from his seat and look down upon Jacen with what the latter thought was a sneer.

Jacen could swear, however, that the pilot was not only not rotting, but he wasn't even nearly as old as he had first appeared. But right before he finally passed out, Jacen could feel a presence around the other man that let him know that he actually was much older than he appeared.