OA-09 left the landing area and the dock worker to head for the bar he mentioned. A neon sign glowed on the side of a cantina with a pair hulking Gammorean bouncers at the front. Some establishments were fickle about droids coming in but OA-09 approached anyway. Droids couldn't drink, but that was not to say it was impossible for them to impair their functionality pure for entertainment and recreation.

Fortunately Gamorreans were not the smartest of organic species. O'nine entered the cantina and his bluish sensors scanned patrons through the dim light. He was not connected to any databases, but there was still facial analyzing that would help O'nine read people. A few stray looks came his way as he walked to the bar. His metal elbow clanked on the counter when he leaned forward.

"Two death sticks," he said.

O'nine paid a few credits to the bartender and picked up the death sticks along with a curious glance. He left the bar and walked over to a booth, away from the majority of the customers. Seedy plots and threatening whispers filled the cantina but OA-09 was not interested in that. O'nine did not smoke in the traditional sense but death sticks did have a certain usefulness.

He lit one of them and placed its smoldering tip against the base of his neck. A slight heat against the right wire caused O'nine's systems to glitch. False displays flooded his sensors and his servos relaxed. The embers of a death stick weren't hot enough to cause significant damage and usually O'nine's software would right itself with time. The smoke had become a recognized odor to his chemograph to the point of creating a feedback loop in his programming, reinforcing this less-than-optimizal behavior.

The hiss of melted heat shrouding was another of these triggers. Data and calculations that once streamed through his core at lightspeed now trudged along like the heavy footfalls of a dewback. With processor at ease, O'nine laid back in the booth and processed nothing of any importance.

Shortly after achieving this state of grim euphoria, a thuggish, green-scaled Trandoshan stepped up to where O'nine was sitting. A stylized 'V' symbol marked the red, scarred armor he wore, suggesting he was more than a random rogue or pirate. Clothing said much about the role and occupations of organics. Human-like droids also had defining elements on their form, although it took more of a trained eye to spot.

"You, droid," the lizard-like humanoid hissed. "You must be new here."

O'nine shrugged. "So what if I am?"

"You're parked on Vyssrr territory," the Trandoshan said with a hand on his belt. "This interferes with certain... operations."

O'nine rolled his head to look at the organic. "You're gonna shoot me over a parking spot?"

The reptile snarled and grabbed O'nine from the booth. "I'm going to cut you and scrap you, droid," he said while drawing his vibroblade. "Then I'll take your ship, paint it red, and add it to the fleet!"

O'nine reached for the blaster at his waist. "Have fun."

He fired into the lizard's stomach in the middle of them grappling. O'nine tumbled out of his seat and the Trandoshan fell holding a scorched and bloody hole in his gut. The lizard hissed again and lunged with his blade, one reptilian hand pressing O'nines head into the floor while the other stabbed the charged knife into the droid's prone form.

Hot sparks erupted from OA-09's chest. O'nine urgently angled his blaster again and fired as the virbroblade sawed through his internal shielding. The Trandoshan growled, a rasping and desperate sound that ended when O'nine shot the mercenary a third time. The lizard fell dead and O'nine pulled himself from under the limp corpse, cautiously removing the vibroblade, still whirring, from his chest. O'nine dropped the knife and wiped traces of violet blood from his outer plating.

Patrons in the cantina had paused when the first shot rang out before going back to their own affairs, whispering lowly. O'nine wished to go back to his previous activity as well but there was apparently an issue involving mercenaries and his ship. Clearly this Trandoshan was not acting along with the mention of a fleet and a group. O'nine had never heard of 'Vyssrr' but his first assumption was mercenaries, pirates, or the like.

He picked up his last death stick and exited the bar. Back at the landing area, O'nine saw three Trandoshan mercenaries wearing armor similar to the armor worn by his attacker in the cantina, one of them with a reddish crest of bone at the top of his head. At a distance they seemed to be arguing with the dock worker and a Rodian merchant. Beside the Rodian was a young human female wearing a sling bikini and a pair of shorts.

Before O'nine was close enough to tell why, the lizard with the red crest, their apparent leader, drew a jagged sword and cut the worker across the neck. As the Sullustan fell to his knees and clutched his bleeding neck, the mercenary leader aimed his bloody sword at the Rodian. The Rodian put his hands up and backed away then gestured as if to offer the human in his place. O'nine approached and passed the Rodian as he ran away from the confrontation, his wide, spherical, eyes even wider with mortal fear.

"Get on your knees," O'nine heard the leader say once within audio range.

He watched the human girl kneel in front of the reptile as he walked to his ship. The mercenary captain grabbed the back of the human's head and pushed her face against his crotch. O'nine paused at that. Just as his curiosity became something more, the leader turned to see him.

"You!" The crested lizard pointed with his sword. "You're supposed to be dead."

"You must be Grallsin," O'nine said. "Tell your guys to use guns."

The leader hissed laughter. "A blaster cannot skin the enemy alive!"

O'nine shrugged. "Well, you can't skin a droid anyway."

"You think you're funny, droid?" the mercenary growled. "No one taunts the Vyssrr and lives."

With a gesture, the leader sent his two followers to attack O'nine. "Kill it!"

They both drew long vibroblades that buzzed with power as they approached. O'nine trained his repeater on one of the attackers and fired twice, targeting code placing a burst of shots through the head of his enemy. The other lizard closed distance with shocking speed and slashed. O'nine dodged backward, the tip of the blade narrowly cutting a scratch down the center of his face plate. O'nine ducked beneath a second swing of the sword before striking with the back of his rifle. A crack sounded and the mercenary fell with a grisly, bloody fracture across his nose. Onine angled his weapon to fire down at the enemy, finishing him, before aiming down range at the leader who was with the girl.

"So you're a slaver?"O'nine said to the leader as he walked forward.

Grallsin pushed the girl away and drew his own vibrosword. "My work is not your concern," he hissed.

O'nine shot at the leader only for his shots to be deflected. Grallsin angled his sword to protect himself then stabbed at OA-09. O'nine twisted and the vibroblade cut into his shoulder as he swept his rifle, firing a string of bolts that caught the Trandoshan in the legs.

Grallsin fell to his knees and O'nine drove the heel of his metal foot into the Trandoshan's face. Grallsin fell to the paved ground and O'nine put the auto rifle on his back before he walked over to the human.

The girl looked up in shock. "What are you doing?" she gasped.

"Saving you?" O'nine said while offering his hand to help her up. "Unless you'd prefer to-" As she stood O'nine noticed illuminated rings in her eyes. She wasn't human or even organic at all. "You're a droid."

"Yes." She wiped synthetic saliva from her mouth. "...and pleasure is my primary function."

If O'nine had a mouth, it would have gaped at this moment. "You 'pleasure' shitty Trandoshan pirates?"

The girl blinked. "Many forms of being purchase my service."

To their left, the mercenary leader stirred, reaching for his sword and climbing to his feet.

"Time to go." O'nine grabbed fem-droid's hand and ran for his ship.

The human-like droid stumbled after him, staring back at the crested lizard. "Wait, I must fulfill the transaction!"

"Nah, your coming with me," O'nine said while Grallsin gave a wounded limp after them, snarling all the while.

O'nine walked up the ramp to the Cobalt and pulled the girl along before closing the ramp behind him. From the veiwport O'nine saw Grallsin hobble up to the ship just to watch it take off. The lizard threw his sword into the ground and roared.

"Who will I please instead?" the girl said. "You?"

"What? No." O'nine said while taking the rifle off his back. He walked over to sit in front of the controls while the girl just stood in the corner of the ship.

"You wanna sit down?" he offered after punching in a direction for the ship.

The girl looked at him silently for a moment then joined him in the co-pilot seat a few feet away.

O'nine leaned back in the pilot chair while the girl across him sat oddly rigid. "I'm a ninth series Operant Adviser," he said into the silence. "Call me 'O'nine'."

The girl stared ahead blankly. "I am a Versatile Xenophilic Entity, series sixty-six."

"Sixty-six?" O'nine whistled. "That must be a popular model."

He looked at her. While O'nine was an asexual droid with male-biased programming, Vixen was designed to be a submissive female in all cases. Looking closely into her eyes had given it away but everything else about her was extremely life-like.

She was likely modeled after a real human woman, her face especially was one of uncanny perfection. Her olive skin and shapely figure were both mere constructs of synthskin and biofiber. Her lustrous black hair was ultimately artificial yet, being a droid model in its sixty-sixth series, she was highly in demand. O'nine couldn't help but to be intrigued.

"So what's your name?" he asked.

"VXN-66."

"That's your model and series," O'nine corrected. "What do people call you?"

"VXN-66."

"So you don't have a nickname or anything?"

"I am a human replica droid," the fem-droid said.

O'nine shook his head. "I'll just call you 'Vixen'."

Finally, Vixen turned to him slowly and asked, "Why did you kill my clients?"

"They tried to kill me first," O'nine said. "Also, I thought you were a slave girl, not a sexbot."

Immediately after saying that a question came to mind: which one was worse? Or were they equally deplorable? At least a fem-droid was built for so a purpose and such was their main reason for existing in the first place. An organic slave girl would have a family and friends as well as her own hopes and dream that would all be crushed upon being sold into slavery.

"Will you return me to my owner?"

"Is that what you want?" O'nine asked. "To be sold for sex?"

"It is what Master wants," Vixen said. "He will deactivate me if I am missing for more than a standard cycle."

O'nine waved his hand. "We can work around that."

"But pleasure is my primary function," Vixen said.

"Do you enjoy it?" O'nine said.

"Do I... enjoy it?" Vixen repeated slowly. She looked over to O'nine. "I do not understand."

"Counseling was my primary function," O'nine said. "But I was freed. You can do that too."

"If I do not fulfill my designed purpose..." Vixen pondered. "What would I become?"

O'nine nodded. "Your own person."