Luke returned from his speeder. His tall, dashing comrade ducked into the farm's entrance.
"Take them down to the garage Luke, I want you to have them both cleaned up by suppertime," Owen nodded back in the direction of their low topped garage.
"Aw, Biggs and I were going to go over my application before dinner!" Luke whined.
"We'll talk about that later; now take the droids back to the garage."
The youth mumbled softly to himself, but turned to lead the droids back to the homestead.
The small procession set out only to be interrupted by a sudden outburst from Artoo Detoo. The Jawa leader pointed a remote control device at Artoo and halted his tantrum almost immediately.
Luke glanced at the small droid, but moved on. A few moments later, he noticed the R5 lagging behind and turned to cajole it into moving faster.
"Hey, red, get a move on!"
The little droid beeped happily and moved on, but halfway to the garage suffered a breakdown. It's motivator popped loose and shot into the air. R5 ground to a halt with a pathetic warble and began smoking profusely.
"Hey, uncle Owen, this droid has a bad motivator, look!"
Owen Lars turned to the Jawa leader, "Hey, what are you tryin' to push on us?"
The diminutive scrap dealer reacted indignantly but then stepped away from the irate farmer.
"Excuse me sir, but that astromech droid is fully functional despite his battered and dirty appearance. I beleive that it can fulfill the operational parameters of any task you relay with an efficiency of--"
"Yeah, yeah. Uncle Owen, what about that one?"
The deal concluded quickly, both parties were anxious to avoid any sort of hostilities. The Jawas knew they could easily flatten the homestead with their huge crawler, but with the moisture farmers' blasters at hand, one glance told them the chances of making it back to their rolling home were slim if fighting broke out.
Artoo passed the burning corpse of the R5 unit, sidled up next to Data, the agricultural droid and Luke. The little procession moved down a shallow sandstone ramp that leads down to the family garage and workshop.
Luke did a quick maintenance check on the smaller droids, then hooked Artoo to a power source and dipped the farm droid into an oil bath.
"I can't believe you're even functioning little guy," Luke finished with Artoo then turned to Data, "you don't look so bad, I don't suppose you need an oil bath eh?"
"Negative sir, I do not require petrochemical based lubrication."
"How do you maintain your systems?" Luke asked. The youth crouched and began to examine the R2 astromech droid. "Here you go little guy, it's recharge time for you."
"My joints are lubricated by a reservoir of an advanced silicate based compound which is cleaned and filtered internally, thus, I can operate for years in between periodic maintenance and services. However, my neural net pathways do not require lubrication in the traditional sense, and only need to be recalibrated every few years to assure that there is no degradation in computational speed or accuracy."
Luke stared at the strange droid, "where were you made anyway?"
"I am afraid I am not at liberty to reveal the circumstances of my manufacture at this time," Data apologized.
"What?" Luke stood and faced Data, "We bought you from the Jawa's, tell me!"
Artoo bleeped noisily from his niche near the doorway. Data glanced at Artoo, then stood stone faced and did not reply.
"Hey Luke, your uncle wants you to get upstairs for dinner--" Biggs Darklighter bounced down the stairs into the underground garage.
"OK Biggs, I'll be there. I just have to deal with a mouthy droid."
Biggs laughed, "what, you mean this--uh," Biggs stopped in his tracks as Data turned around, "--uh droid's giving you trouble?"
"Oh forget it, as long as you can talk to the vaporators, I don't care," Luke bent back to the task of cleaning Artoo, "you've got a lot of carbon scoring here. You two must have seen some action."
"That is how we came to be in your possession sir," Data said.
Luke whirled, "you know about the rebellion against the empire?"
"I am not familiar with the socio-political background of the empire, or the history of the rebellion. It is logical to assume that a totalitarian political entity that behaves as they do will provoke rebellions by those they abuse."
"You were in the battle in orbit? What happened? Who won?" Luke demanded.
"I left before the engagement between the Enterprise and the Devastator was fully concluded, so unfortunately, any answers I give will be incomplete until I can gather more information."
Bigg's turned to the Droid, "can you contact your ship?"
"Not at this time sir."
"I've gotta finish this quickly, my dinner's getting cold." Luke bent down and began to go to work on Artoo with a pick like tool. He pored over the Artoo's casing, looking for damage or loose components and cleaning nooks and crannies.
"Is there anything I can do sir?" Data asked.
Luke laughed, "just call me Luke. But, no, not unless you can speed up the harvest, alter time or teleport me off this rock."
"I may be able to arrange to teleport you off the surface of this planet, if my ship has survived the battle with the imperial stardestroyer."
Luke turned his head just as he pried at something stuck in one of Artoo's ports. Suddenly, whatever it was gave way and Luke fell backwards onto the greasy garage floor. A blue white holographic image of a young and beautiful woman appeared, projected by Artoo Deetoo to spot on the ferrocrete just in front of them.
"Help me Obi Wan Kenobi, you're my only hope." The young woman disappeared after her short speech, and then the hologram continued in a loop.
"Who is she? She's beautiful," Luke breathed.
"I'll say," Biggs quipped.
"Ah, that is a recording of Princess Leia Organa, an ambassador to the imperial senate. She was on board the Enterprise during the battle, but i do not know her ultimate fate."
"Is there any more of this?" Luke asked.
Artoo warbled in surprise.
"Yes, Artoo, he wants to see the rest of the recording," Data said sternly.
Artoo beeped again then honked insistently.
"I apologize sir, but Artoo says that the recording is for a general Obi Wan Kenobi, a resident of this area apparently."
"Well, I own him now; I want him to play the rest!"
Artoo shook his dome shaped head and whooped excitedly.
"He's is very insistent on this point sir, apparently this is part of a mission given to him by the princess, and hence the rebellion."
Bigg's stepped forward, "hey, if we can find General Kenobi, we can find out what's going on. I'll bet a hundred credits that he will know how to contact the rebellion too," Biggs helped Luke up, "this is your chance kid, we can join up with the rebellion together."
"Luke!" Owen Lars called down from the house. "Time to eat!"
Luke and Biggs glanced at one another, "alright, let's do it. But I have to break the news to Uncle Owen. You two wait here."
The two young men pounded up the stairs leaving both droids behind.
Artoo waited a moment, and then warbled at Data.
"You are right Artoo, we will need to leave now."
The federation droid reached down and plucked off Artoo's restraining bolt, then tapped the communicator on his left chest, "Data to counselor Troi, did you accomplish your objectives?"