And We Meet

I’ve been in my share of hairy situations, but this one is definitely one of the fuzziest. I’m stuck in a cell in Temo the hut’s prison in some outer rim dump called Tatooine. This is the type of place the lowest of the low-end up. Or the just plain stupid.

It’s too dark to see anything, but I’ve made friends with a few of the scumbags down here. Oren the Quarren, you know those squid looking things? What a piece of work. He was a former death star worker, but that’s just the start of his problems. He claims his time on the death star was him just trying to get by. There are worse ways to get through life, I suppose. It’s not entirely clear how he ended up next to me, but here he is, asking for whatever a peanut and tomato sandwich is.

I’m not quite sure why Temo imprisoned droids, especially considering the ones I found here are undoubtedly more useful as scrap. There is this protocol droid, a former hyperdrive parts “negotiator,” who goes by MRDR. It’s a ridiculous name; he has never even killed anyone. Apparently, it’s an aspirational name. One day, MRDR got tired of being a glorified salesman and decided he would be the galaxy’s best assassin. So he didn’t kill anyone, why’s he here? Selling a spaceship part for half price? A protocol droid with a dream to be an assassin, only in a jail cell at the edge of the galaxy could you find that.

He’s not entirely worthless. He translates GNK11’s incessant gronking. This trash can only communicate with, what as far as I can tell, is a single sound, though MRDR translates it to Galactic Basic for us. GNK11’s wiring isn’t quite right. He insists on being called Lance slaughter bot, the full title! I called him Lance once, and he gronked until the nerfs came home. Lance slaughter bot has big dreams of freeing his droid brethren, and I’m not convinced he didn’t get convicted to do just that down here.

There was an explosion, and the next thing I know, I’m running through the streets of Tatooine with killbot, killcan, and squid head. I don’t know what caused the explosion, but Temo certainly sent some grunts after us. We dive into the first building we see. It’s a cantina with a mean-looking Devaronian behind the bar. Well, not mean, just regular Devaronian looking. If I wasn’t running for my freedom, I would complain about the music. It all sounds the same in these backspace dumps.

MRDR talks to big and beautiful behind the bar, and he graciously offers to take 40 credits from us in exchange for hiding in the storage closet. In the storage closet, we can see a group of Gamorreans pop in, guns were drawn. Temo’s grunts must have seen us come in. If the pig heads didn’t find us, they’d be back with more of Temos men. With some protests from MRDR, we decide to get the jump on them. I have no idea why he calls himself MRDR if he just wants to talk his way out of everything.

Oren shot first, and MRDR bot followed up and finally earned his first kill. Lance sticks a blaster out of his…mouth? And blows the socks off the last two. A few claps from the patrons in the bar, but most barely look up from their drinks. It is a common enough event around these parts.

Devil Man behind the bar lets out a laugh. He says, based on who we seemed to have pissed off here, we’re going to need a way off this planet. He tells us about captain Trek, one of Temos men who’s freighter has a broken hyper matter reactor. We can probably find one at Vorns junk shop. The rust buckets want to kill this bartender.

We hurriedly made our way to the junk shop. Vorns is just like every junk rat, old and ornery. He opened with he can sell us anything, but after finding out we need a hyper matter reactor, he can’t. It’s been promised to Captain Trek already. MRDR, like the good protocol droid he is, lies to the man and tells him we’re Trek’s crew, here to pick up the reactor. The old man buys it, I guess we do look like a bunch of lowlifes, but the Trek hasn’t paid for it. Vorn wants 500 credits for it! I’m sure none of us has that money. The droids start to consider more blaster centric options when Oren the money fish drops the credits we need. Now we just need to break onto a large freighter, manned by people who would kill us, fix a hyper matter reactor, and just fly away. Easy.