The electronic doorbell of a droid repair shop chimed noisily. The owner, a tall, gaunt, sand-green-scaled Trandoshan, briefly looked past the Duros and two masked men standing in front of him before resuming his thought. His voice was coarse, and he seemed to hold on to words a bit longer than most people speaking Galactic Basic would. "...you want to collect your tax, yes..? I can have that ready. I am reliable. But I cannot give you any credits if you do not let my customers pass. Unless there is something else you'd like to take? Besides my time?"

The Duros man tensed, giving a half glance to the man behind him. He raised a hairless eyebrow before turning back to the store owner. "Don't test your luck, Fesk. Tread lightly, and remember who you owe this to."

The first guard turned around, looking at the Bounty Hunter through yellow lenses of a hooded helmet as he walked to the door. Followed by the Duros man he was presumably guarding, and then the second guard. They were clothed in black, covered by long, gray aprons. They had no obvious weapons but glared daggers into the eyes of the resolute human carrying an astromech droid. As they left, the door chimed again, and the Trandoshan behind the counter sighed, waving over Kroegr. He was mumbling something before he shook himself and looked up.

"Welcome to my… little shop. I am Fesk… and I take it that this is my problem child of today?" the repairman asked, referring to what remained of a droid in Koegr's hands. Fesk put his own hands together and took some time to look over the brightly colored man in front of him. The humble burlap-camo of Fesk's jumpsuit, a datapad slung on his left hip, and an empty holster on his right thigh was a heavy contrast to the exotically hued man in front of him. Fesk's mouth opened, then closed. If he wanted to get paid, he'd want to get only as many details as he needed. "May I see it?"

The bounty hunter unceremoniously placed the astromech onto the counter. A part fell off and hit the floor with a small clang. "Here you go. I need the intact motherboard as fast as possible."

The Trandoshan tilted his head and pressed a button. The counter receded, carrying the parts of what used to be a fully functioning astromech into the workshop. "I take it… you aren't a droid person..?" Every surface of the shop was unpainted but shined, every tool, neatly lined up. Fesk was organized - and frustrated with the Bounty Hunter's lack of the quality. "I can rip out its brain module, but this chassis… where is it from?" Fesk started, examining the parts and establishing what he was working with. Not to mention the fact that it was in nearly three chunks.

Var pushed some credits into the vendor's exchange box, about a thousand. "You have twenty-four hours, but I'll check in on you in twelve." He turned on his heel and walked out of the shop. The telltale rattle of the metal currency immediately snapped the repairman back to attention, and he looked up only to hear the door chime.

As Var's red cape fluttered out the door, Fesk found that if he was to satisfy any ounce of curiosity he had, the solution would be in that droid's brain. Parts rattled around as he pulled the droid onto a cart. Gold was an unusual choice of gilding… and what looked to be two metal slugs embedded in the droid's midsection was an unusual choice of poison. He picked up a slicer tool, a few diagnostic applicators, and a restraining bolt out of a bin on the off chance it started working again. Fesk turned his attention away from the counter and got to work.

Four standard hours later, Fesk groaned in the cold silence of his workshop. He sat on the torso chassis of some protocol droid, headless, legless, dropped off, and harvested for spare parts many days earlier. The gilded gold-and-purple dome of the R-series unit shone at him almost mockingly. Disconnects throughout the entire system were making it impossible to dissect properly. The bolts holding in the brain were obscured by twisted metal, and Fesk did not want to scrap the entire thing. There were valuable metals still inlaid within the dome, lenses custom to this unit… five-hundred credits at least. For the dome alone.

Fesk was determined, though. If he couldn't rip out the brain, he'd drill his way to it, and leave a newly installed ventilation port onto the site he left. He got up, the torso he was sitting on clattering to the ground, surprising him. He kicked it, sending it crashing into the corner, swearing at what used to be a very crass human-relations cyborg. He sulked all the way to the workbench, picking up a drill bit and squinting at the lights above him. They irritated him, but not as much as trying to find his power drill. Fesk eventually combed through enough bins to lay claim to it, the reptilian digits of his hand closing around it while he turned back to the golden-purple payday.

The drill was painfully loud, screaming its distaste as it bit into the dome of the astromech. He knew the schematics of this unit well, and if all was going to plan, and the sudden jerk of movement told him he was free of the unit's protective plating. Plasteel was no match for a good-old-fashioned power tool. He pulled the hot bit out of the dome, setting it aside to see a remarkably intact droid brain. He was surprised to see an Intellex V, used in R3 units. This model must have had its dome replaced, which would explain why the brain wasn't coming out the way he had expected it to. Thankfully, the input port for the brain was barely off-center from the hole he made, a fact that made the Trandoshan beam with satisfaction as he slung his datapad from his hip to his hand, pulling the wound-up cord from its corner and plugging it in with only mildly infuriating finagling.

Fesk found the dialect of the droid as he browsed its brain. It was wondering, curious, and all too blank of a slate. This droid had been well-maintained, personality eradicated every week or so, but essential data left untouched. This was what that bounty hunter must have been after. Fesk straightened his back and then noticed how short the cable between his window inside the droid and the brain was. He picked the dome up and hopped onto the workbench at the side of the moderately-sized room, setting it onto his lap as he hunched over, reading the manifest that revealed itself to him. Written in Galactic Basic were labels, shortcuts… maps. Hyperspace lane routes through something called Huttspace..? This droid must have been a navigator, no doubt misplaced by some smuggler… but how did it end up here? And what did that Bounty Hunter have to do with this? Was he working for these supposed "Hutts," or someone else?

The doorbell clamored to life again, making Fesk jump out of his sitting position, the dome falling out of his lap and with a tug, pulling something out of his datapad as he fumbled for the cord. The datapad suddenly had nothing to show as it was clutched against his chest, and the Trandoshan swore as he looked at the end of the cord. The input pins had been torn out by the sudden jerk. Fesk swore again. It would take the rest of the day to pull them back out of the brain, not to mention replace the pins on the cord. This whole awkward play of motion was not unnoticed by the man who walked into the waiting room, flanked by his two guards. The Duros smiled predatorily at Fesk through the transparisteel barrier.

"You could not have chosen a better time, Pledge..?" The repairman hissed from across the windows, separating the workshop from the lightly-used waiting area. The thin lips of Pledge curled up into a smile.

"This is when I always come. I take it you've been working on your client's droid?" He walked closer, typing a sequence of numbers onto a locked door panel to the left of the windows. Fesk nodded, putting his datapad on the workbench he had just lept from, and leaned down to pick up the dome. The door slid open, and the Duros looked down at the slouched Trandoshan. The guards stopped inside the door while Pledge walked to the bench. Fesk spoke as he picked up the pieces. "He wanted me… to slap a fix on it. Told him… it's gonna cost a lot… to replace the chassis…" He gestured in the general direction of the shattered project's midsection, lying on a repair cart. The damage was more than superficial.

"Looks like it got dropped a hundred levels and landed on its side," Pledge commented, slowly becoming invested in the case.

Fesk stood, pushing the parts onto the bench beside the datapad, and sighed at them. He shined the radar eye lens, grateful to see no scratches on it. Pledge hovered over his charge, curious to look at the details a second time. His henchmen still stood at the door, hands at their sides and less than entertained. Pledge raised an eyebrow and tilted his head to the Trandoshan. "You don't see R2's very much anymore… and I know you work more on the R5's. What's so special about this one?" Fesk tensed at the words, stopping his inspection before trying to reply.

"I… suppose that would be a question… for the man who brought it in," Fesk resumed his work, this time spinning the head on it's side. "I agree… R5's have many more… predictable problems… And, Pledge, this one's an R3. Dome was replaced..."

"Really? I shouldn't be surprised, I suppose… are you seriously going to replace the chassis? This looks custom." Pledge reached for the dome, but Fesk shot him a dirty look. The Duros flinched, and a guard put a step forward. Pledge gestured him away.

"I'm not done," the Trandoshan growled, "inspect the chassis on the cart if you must, but I want to save… as much as I can… if it's so precious."

The Neversky handler backed off, a little surprised at Fesk's spontaneous possessiveness over the dome. He instead began to run his hands over the crumpled droid's body, eyeing the parts that had already been ripped out by the scavenger. Each maintenance arm was decorated to an extreme degree. Pledge didn't know how he'd missed it before, while his fingers traced down the damaged frame. At the base of the midsection, where the crease caused by high-speed metal had shredded into the droid, he recognized a glyph. The stamp of a Hutt.

"You sure you don't know who this belongs to? Because I seriously doubt it belongs to the guy who brought it in." Pledge asked the Trandoshan. Fesk's entire body tightened as he turned his head to look at the taxman.

"I don't scare off… my business… with questions, I don't need to know…" Fesk replied, every word measured but drawn out, his voice not suited to the phonetics he relied on. He turned back to his work. "I didn't ask if that is what you're wondering."

"Then you'll have no quarrel handing it over to me?" The Duros said with a fake lilt. He waved his guards over as Fesk tilted his head and set the dome down on the workbench. He turned around to see Pledge with his hands folded together and flanked by his guards.

"Excuse me?" Fesk kept a hand on the droid's dome as if to represent his claim to the credits that it meant. He needed the job. But Pledge didn't care anymore.

"Guards, give me a bead on him," Pledge ordered, the helmeted thugs immediately reaching into their aprons and drawing stout Model 44's on the Trandoshan. The Duros walked unrestricted past Fesk, shooing his hand away from the part, and picked it up for himself with some strain. His thin lips folded into a smile as he cradled the heavy piece of robotics. Fesk stood powerless to stop them, lest he wanted to feel his blood vaporize, but still, he growled his disapproval. Pledge only smiled at the unknowing Trandoshan.

"You," Fesk started, "are a worthless-"

The guard closest to the lizard lifted his blaster, reminding Fesk that he held no cards. Pledge found it his turn to speak. "You owe everything to me. Anything in these walls you think you have belongs to Neversky. Especially something that belongs to the Hutts." The Duros slung the dome beneath his arm and turned around, confident that his guards would keep their guns on the lizard. Anger filled Fesk's veins, his hands clenching and unclenching, only watching as the Neversky thugs backed out of the room. The door closed in front of them, and as it shut, Fesk leaped to his counter, scrambling for his weapon. As his digits closed around it's handle, he heard a distinct, but muted sound. He looked up, and through the transparisteel, saw the eyes of a smiling Duros. Pledge returned his stolen RK-3 blaster pistol to the inside of his apron, and grinned to his left, at his smoldering target. The exterior access panel to Fesk's workshop was all but smoking scrap.

Fesk was trapped.