[member="Natalie LaForte"],
Another day, another invitation was sent out from the palace of Lord Protector in the Orbit of Denon. The Droid Space was a Galactic power that rose to claim their territory almost overnight, suddenly appearing in the Denon and Corellian sector and managing to establish partnership and cooperation with various planetary governments rather quickly. Their path was not one of conquest however, for the machines preferred way of diplomacy and commerce over anything else, particularly the art of bribing, which turned out to be highly effective on organics and bought them their way into Galactic political theater. Over time they became very good at making deals and buying out loyalties of various merchants, politicians, and less reputable characters, it seemed that HK was planning on continuing that tradition as the machine insisted on keeping frequently updated storefront on HoloNet showcasing all of the industries under patronage of Metal Lords and even putting time aside to personally deal with some of their clients and manage the storefront himself.
However, it was not frequently that a company, especially one as established as Intergalactic Monetary Found, reached out to them first. Usually the deals Metal Lords made were with smaller companies, promising startups who the droid merchants could not only groom to become active players tied closely to the prosperity of Droid Space, but also ones desperate for growth enough to make the so-called deal with a robot devil. Natalie did not really had to cover or avoid the topic of her company's construction of droids, if she sold them on public markets the chances are the droid already knew about it, and was probably going to mention it during their meeting. Either way, the machine would not have agreed to meet her and invite Natalie all the way to Denon if he was going to only berate or lecture her, Metal Lords wanted to make a deal, for although many did not like to admit it, HK knew that to survive and grow they could not just rest on the deals they make already, but constantly seek out new connections to make, and grow their influence through partnerships.
Once Natalie's transport arrived in the orbit of Denon, she would notice that it would be a sight vastly different from what she remembered from the holo-recordings. Well the planet itself would have been unchanged, still glimmering with the many industrial lights, still covered by the red and black veins of streets and buildings that covered the entire city-planet. The new addition, however, was the ring of ships encircling the planet as if laying siege to it, and the many stations being build in its orbit with hustle and bustle of smaller vessels and drones.
Natalie's ship would have been directed to dock with one of these stations and come aboard, a strange construction that almost seemed to be cobbled together from skeletons and corpses of other stellar structures, repurposed many times over and added on top of each other, like jigsaw of starship wrecks and durasteel plating woven together to form the new presence over the planet. Other systems would have probably faced similar projects as Denon was not alone in still adjusting to the new power within that sector, planets like Nubia, Loromar, and Hakassi too had similar rings of spacecraft around, they too had new spacestations and bases build around them. The droids asked for relatively little of their subjects, they did not enslaved them, they did not force them to fight for them, some did not even overthrew their previous governments. What they did ask however was one of the main reasons why they decided to lay claim on territory. An armada of new, larger ships, and a lot of them.
Moving through the spacestation Natalie would have been directed towards one of the many conference rooms, passing many other droids on her way there, which currently HK claimed as his main office and base of operations within the system. The room would be fairly large, with a grand conference table in the middle with a holoprojector housed in its center, and a smaller duranium desk sitting in front of a large view screen or transparisteel, overlooking the glowing amber planet they were currently orbiting, with the other grand station now in the planet's orbit,
the Space Bazaar, visible just disappearing behind the planet over in the distance.
The droids Natalie passed would usually seem rather intelligent and independent, going about their day and the duties within the station, chattering with each other in quick bursts of data, although some did seem a bit off. Slightly loopy, dancing on the brink of insanity, only somewhat lucid, but then again such was usually the price when it came to droids who have not had a mind wipe in years if not centuries, quirks and data just kind of build up for them. There were few units who seemed much less intelligent, looking over their surroundings with dull cold stare, usually following other droids as their servants, or standing as silent guards within the station. They were drones, machines like droids, but with only rudimentary intelligence, more like animals than truly sentient beings. They were the answer droids had towards making large mechanical armies, yet not having the guilt over enslaving their own kind into combat legions.
And so Natalie would come face to face with her host, the droid stood up from behind his desk, looking at her in silence, letting her have the first words as he judged her from behind the impassive stare of two crimson photoreceptors like flaming embers, yet cold at the same time. His face was a smooth faceplate with no nose, slots for lips and mouth, two fang-like spikes protruding down from it, and the holes for those electronic eyes. It was smooth and pale like bone, yet metallic, if Natalie could tell such things apart she would know it was Phrik. She would see then that she was wrong on one account, the machine may not exactly value the armors she made as gift for others, but to keep them for himself, for the rest of the droid's body seemed to have been covered in some sort of flesh-like black substance with thicker chitinous plates attached over certain regions, all of which was wrapped tightly in heavy black cloak. A Vong-shaped armor, rarely if ever seen on a droid.
