A Salvage Worker and a Dream
Written by Honj Espoz
Fan fiction inspired by Star Wars, no infringement to the original creators is intended in this work.
The cantina buzzed with activity, like most, but this one was busy. Passengers, crews and captains of ships of all sizes and classes were mixed together in a vivid display of the galaxies many inhabitants. The waitress seemed to float by, her free arms placing the drinks around the table in the recesses made for them to keep the surface clean of debris for the cards. You barely even let yours land before bringing it to your lips. You were thirstier than you thought and it soothes your throat on the way down.
"So you wanna know about my droid?"
The voice of the auburn haired man clad in a green and silver flight jacket brought you out of your momentary bliss. His piercing blue eyes bounced around the table, but darted back to the being on your left that had taken a lingering look at the human's mechanical companion. They nodded, but only out of courtesy and the flyboy smirked as he shuffled the card deck one more time. The thin, mostly red mustache atop his lip only extenuates the grin forming as he slides the cards off one by one to everyone at the table, your first card lands just as he begins to spin his yarn.
"So back in the day I was doin' delivery runs outta Raxus..."
~15BBY~
"A whole R unit still in an old Jedi ship, and you just left it?!" Shouted a human voice and interrupted the story Skerguf Vantol, a boisterous, turquoise scaled Rodian with missing spines on the side of his scarred head was telling the other salvage workers. He pivoted and searched the room with his now scowling, big purple eyes as he stood atop a crated hyperdrive in the hanger bay. It was lulls like this between loading ships with used parts that tall tales, gambling and fights happened in the many reclamation centers of Raxus Prime.
The collection of grimy, haggard looking individuals from half a dozen species also looked around and saw the resident fly boy that worked as many shifts as he could, sauntering their way, a gloved hand hooked into a pocket of his flight pants by a thumb while the other clutched a lidded cup of caff to get the information he wanted from the yard worker. Most of the parts pulling and scav work was done by non-humans like Skerguf, because the Rodian biology could stand to breathe what passed as atmosphere on this planet turned junkyard without a respirator.
Skerguf faced the human, a Raxus Segundus native and puffed out his chest. His suction cup tipped fingers landed on his his as he rocked on his heels, arrogantly refusing to divulge the information. "Who gives a scurrier's rump about some old astromech, I've got my ticket out of here." He bragged to the auburn haired man as he approached.
"You do? I thought I won those credits off of you three rotations ago." Retorted the young man with a smirk. He didn't have to laugh, the crowd did it for him and caused the Rodian's snout to form a frown.
"I've got the blasted Jedi's lightsaber, plucked it off his bones!" Countered the bruised ego of the Rodian, his antennae twitching ever so slightly in frustration.
"Oh, well excuse me, didn't know we had a laser sword master amongst us rust pickers!" The man fired back, reviving the laughter of the crowd and gaining back their favor
"All I see is a scav slower than the ol' Class 5 Hyperdrive he's standing on! I'll give you twenty credits if you tell me where that droid is." He continued to goad Skerguf, who growled in frustration and pulled the lightsaber from a fold in his tunic, holding it out for all to see.
"You'll give me my full hundred credits back or I'll split you like a plasma cutter does the alusteel hull plating on your fools errand rebuild of that dirty heap in the corner or the hanger!" The now insulted Rodian threatened over a hushed crowd as he shook the hilt of the weapon at the offender.
"All you're gonna cut is your own head off fooling around with that thing peedunky. But first, where's it at in the yard?" The delivery pilot gambled on the salvager's bluff and he held up fifty credits in one hand while the other casually sunk to the grip of the blaster in his pocket. The offer of money immediately quelled any further violence, not that the Rodian actually knew how to activate the archaic weapon.
A short while later the human was fifty credits poorer and at the helm of an open decked hover skiff, floating over wreckage and debris from over a dozen systems, dumped on a once lush planet for probably twice as many centuries. As he raced towards the area he sought to find a real astromech in, the pilot, clad in mismatched protective equipment, wiped his goggles with the sleeve of his jacket and checked the sensors. He was in the right sector, if the Rodian was actually telling the truth.
"Where are you, you fork nosed little coffin?" He muttered as he scanned the heaps of debris for the distinct shape of the Kuat Systems Engineering built ship. Spying the glint of transparasteel from the cockpit canopy freshly pried open, he circled the ship once, noting that the Rodian was right, the droid was pinned in place by the wreckage but at least appeared to be whole.
Parking the skiff alongside what he could now identify the Jedi Starfighter as a Delta-series Eta-2 Actis light interceptor, a newer type of the few ships The Order flew. He could see inside the burned out cockpit and saw the charred remains of the pilot left to a disgraceful end. The light freighter pilot wasn't fond of the old Republic, it's traitorous Jedi or the Galactic Empire that rose from their downfall, they all had made his family and home planet suffer during and after the war, though no one should be left to the mercy of scavengers and vermin. But to have your remains yanked apart by looters like Skerguf who were searching for quick credits or some sort of trophy... No, even a Jedi deserved better than that.
The salvage pilot pulled a scrap of tarpaulin from a container aboard the skiff and draped it over the humanoid's partially scattered bones, moreso for his own piece of mind than actual respect while he used the cutting torch and other tools he brought with him to free the body he intended to resurrect, the one of the yellow and red astromech droid jammed into the now misshapen socket.
The howling call of a Strill jarred the lone salvager from his meticulous work and forced him to look around, he realized that it was far closer to dusk than he wanted it to be and the foul smelling, six legged, crudely flying creatures with gigantic, drooling maws were far faster than he could think to draw and aim the old blaster pistol he had tucked into a deep pocket of his flight pants.
"Don't have time for this poodoo..." He cursed out loud as he saw a tail waggle above the debris in the distance, off to his right. The body it was attached to clamored over what might have been a commercial food processor a few decades ago and disappeared into one of the innumerable crevices and holes in the surface of the landscape made of scrapped machinery, starships of every size and trash. The torch wielding pilot grumbled and set back to work faster, feeling exposed on the top of the heaped junk.
"Gotta get you outta here before it gets dark and, or, that critter comes back." He mumbled to himself through his mask. To his surprise there was a weak series of beeps and chirps that responded. He looked up and his piercing blue eyes locked with the cracked, dimly lit photoreceptor lens of the droid.
"What?! No I don't think they eat mechanicals, I'm more worried about me! But I'm glad to see that you're still functional, little one. You've been out here a long time." He said clearly to the barely functioning droid. It tried to turn it's dome and look at the cockpit, but they both heard the grinding it's parts made as the dented portion of the main body jammed the rounded dome of the droid. It declared it's malfunction and then worked itself up as it started to recall the last few moments before it had crashed all those years ago.
"Whoa, whoa! slow it down, There's no clones here, not anymore. The Empire retired them all years ago, once they were done getting rid of the liars you worked for." The droid, more aware now that some of her systems warmed up feebly argued with her would be rescuer. "Look, all the Jedi are gone, close to five years now. You're sitting in the Raxus junkyard, in the path of a mobile smelting and salvage plant... You can stay here or you can come with me, I've got a job for you." He said as caringly as he could to the still confused droid, it was out of commission for a long time.
A few minutes later, just as the sun touched the horizon and gave off it's eerie colored lights from the pollution in the atmosphere, the droid was nearly free. The pilot was able to get enough information out of it to determine that it was in fact a she and programmed specifically for starships. "Good, well have I got a starship for you to work on, it'll be great once we can...!"
He didn't finish his statement as a Strill pounced on his back, knocking him off the small ship as it started tearing at the small pack the had on, thankfully, and not his skin. He hollered, rolled and bucked until he was able to throw the creature off him as he scrambled back towards the relative safety of the old interceptor. The little droid screeched and wobbled in her position in the derelict ship. He reached into his pocket and cursed as the big blaster hung up on the fabric. The Strill snarled, it's massive jaws drooling from the thoughts of turning the human into it's next meal as it moved it's six legs easily over the debris and back towards the fumbling pilot as he pondered his demise. "This is it, I'm going out on a junk pile to this rank smelling cur…"
He thought anyway, until the crackle of electricity and a yowl of pain filled the air. He popped one eye open once he realized the pain wasn't his and watched as the singed beast ran away, the droid spewing insults and curses after it while waving her onboard tool arm in it's general direction. The pilot hopped up, adding his own hoots and cheers to the droids.
"That's how it's done! Whoo-wee! We make a good team hunh?! Say, what am I callin' you anyway?" He asked the droid in huffs from all the recent activity. She chirped her designation as he helped her shimmy free of the mangled Delta-series ship's droid socket, her once brightly painted and polished body now dented, scorched and rusted from the lack of care.
"R4-PJ11 hunh? Well alright, lets jet!" He said and helped her onto the skiff, two of her three feet were damaged enough to most likely have to just be replaced. She blurted and whomped about her terrible condition and how she may as well just be scrap as she was guided to a place that she could start to recharge, her power levels now critically low and in danger of fully shutting down and possibly resetting her systems.
"Nah, I'll get you patched up, don't you worry 'bout that little lady." She thanked him, and out of courtesy asked her new master his name as he piloted back towards the station. "Master? bah, stow that scruff PJ, just call me Honj, Honj Espoz."