Adrift (Character Intro)

[B1-176]

The ship creaked and the hull groaned as the affects of gravity had, for the first time in eight-and a half centuries, lay it's grasp upon the maxillipede shuttle. The ship was a husk of what it once was. This vessel was once distinguished, and may have carried important figures of the ancient confederacy, perhaps even the great Palpatine himself, or his apprentice Dooku. None of that mattered though, currently it just drifted aimlessly through the cosmos, uninterrupted by an passing rocks, and unnoticed by traveling citizens.

The glass window of the ship's cockpit was completely frosted over, and the engines had reached absolute zero. This ship was, for all intensive purposes, dead. It would take a miracle to get it running, and from the looks of the carbon buildup on the wings, there was heavy damages.

Inside the ship, hunched forward in a seat was the skeletal remains of some unfortunate alien who'd likely starved or suffocated while drifting, and in the rear of the ship, next to some cargo containers, were the three silhouettes of ancient B1 battle droids. Long dead, and in need of a charge, the only way they may ever run again would be if someone was to stumble upon the ship. But with the way it was shaking, and the increasing size of a large world coming closer and closer through the open rear hatch, the chances of someone stumbling upon it soon were high. So, for now, this damaged vessel drifted, waiting to be saved by some passer-byer or discovered by some crime gang looking for loot.

 

[Anna Sachae]

A FEW HUNDRED THOUSAND KILOMETERS BEYOND OUTER ORBIT
GX-2183, Local Time 0230

One green light in the garage was all the signal Anna needed to strap in. The salvage vessel would be making physical contact within a minute or two, depending on how the pilot flew this creaking old codger. For most of the relatively small crew she'd signed on with, this was a quick credit. Pick the rotting carcass of an ancient war clean before it entered orbit and started burning into space dust. Anna had other plans.

The scavenger ship rumbled as they attached claws to the outer hull. There didn't seem to be any hull breach on the ancient transport, but they'd still definitely have to cut their way in regardless. No power meant no autolocks. Within a minute or so of contact, Anna could hear the hissing of plasma torches slowly tearing their way through a door long since cold-welded in place. It'd take a while, so she had plenty of time to get her gear together and seal up her exo suit. Oxygen green, heating green. Good to go. She stepped into the airlock and waited with the rest.

Eventually, the plasma torches cracked their way through the hull, and a half-dozen salvagers milled in through the opening. The ship was frigid cold and pitch black, its power cells long since shut down by failsafe protocol. No ghost lights active on any console, no creak of mechanical stress from the long-dead autodoors. No gravity, hence the exo suit magnet boots. The ship was parts, at this point, which was a tragedy all its own. Anna adored helping broken birds fly again, but that would require some serious necromancy for this wreck.

Two scavengers pushed past her on the left, heading for the cockpit. The rest had fanned out towards important suits; medical, communications, passenger quarters... Anna ignored all of that and turned towards the rear of the ship. Cargo and engines. At best they'd be antiquities by now. At worst, desh plating. Force, that was a morbid way of looking at it. The whole thing was just depressing. Normally a ship wasn't this far gone, but here? Not a lot to be saved.

She placed a hand on one wall and closed her eyes. The ship was too long dead to be able to speak to her, but she could still feel echoes. Nothing had happened for so long that the memories of its last moments were still somewhere near the surface. The pulse of power. The flush of life. An aching need to save what little was left of its purpose. Keep flying. Keep its passengers intact.

Passengers?

Three little echoes of power. Pulsing, electric souls, shuffling aimlessly about in their dying mother. Nowhere to go... Nothing to do... Just awaiting oblivion. Soldiers without a war to fight or a commander to follow. Anna's eyes stung, but she couldn't reach her face to wipe the tears away. Instead, she pulled her hand back and renewed her march towards the cargo hold. There was at least someone waiting for her there. Three someones. Did she have enough power cells for all three?

When the technopath reached the rear of the ship, it was clear she wasn't going to find her way through on vision and flashlights alone. She walked slowly, brushing her gloved fingers across crates of antique blaster rifles and Confederate art. Most of this would fetch a fantastic price if she could hit up a CIS collector. Idly, Anna placed her tag on a few choice items to make sure she got enough of a cut, but that wasn't her goal here. Each and every piece in here had been meticulously organized by an entire crew of forlorn, abandoned droids. Each step gave her another piece of that puzzle.

Crash webbing. There we go. Anna pulled out a cutter to slice the droids free, sitting them up as respectfully as she could. It would be a bad idea to dive any deeper now. Getting lost in the past was always... risky. She'd need to get them back to the garage on the ship, first. Which meant she had to be a little disrespectful. It'd take far too long to sled each one out individually, so as gently as possible, Anna Sachae piled the droids on top of each other and tugged them back to the ship.

Despite the good intentions, this was for livelihood. She still had to make good on her claim to some of those containers, so Anna made sure to hook all three droids up to a charger in her little section of the salvage vessel's garage before she made her way back to the derelict. "I'll see you three in a minute, alright? Don't go anywhere." Connected or not, Anna was under no delusions that they could hear her. She'd have to make proper introductions when she got back.

[member="B1-176"]

 

[Kahlil Noble]

"What do you mean someone's already on board?" There was a trill of sarcastic beeps from a small astromech droid within the cockpit of The Bastion, just a simple freighter drifting through space. Kahlil leaned back in his seat, a frown on his face as he crossed his arms over his chest. "There wasn't suppose to be anyone here. How did they find it?" R6 didn't answer, instead focusing on getting them closer to the drifting, dead ship. Kahlil glanced out to both it and the scavenger's ship, still frowning.

"Dom, we're probably gonna have to make a deal to get what we need from there." He clicked on his com, speaking directly to [member="Dominic Shiro"] . Another of his padawans. "They might not know they have it, so keep it under wraps. Get ready to meet this crew, and hope they're friendly."

[member="Anna Sachae"] [member="B1-176"]

 

[kilik]

do you need help there i will see what i can do as he walked over my name is kilik and i can see you might need some help

 

[Dominic Shiro]

Dominic stood in, where he would often be found, the training room continuously swinging A training saber as a form of practice. He finished his duel against nothing, and placed the saber back onto the weapons rack. At that point he heard [member="Kahlil Zambrano"]'s voice over the comm and to absolutely no-ones surprise, they had found trouble again. "No matter how much time we spend apart and how much we try to avoid it, we've come straight back into conflict. Seems we have a curse. I'll let you handle the negotiations." Probably for the best that he wasn't involved in the talking aspect, the last time he tried to 'seal the deal' it ended with a few Toydarians lacking their wings.​

​

He scrambled back to his room to retrieve both a fresh set of clothes and his lightsabers. Upon reaching his room he threw on a fresh shirt and his jacket, then turned to look at the pair of sabers upon his desk, almost deciding to leave one behind. Though he decided it'd be better to take them both, incase trouble rose up. He swiftly made his way to the airlock, ready to get this Job underway. In truth, he didn't know what the job was, Kahlil had told him but he didn't really listen, so he simply strolled through the bastion awaiting further news.​

​

[member="Anna Sachae"] [member="B1-176"]​

 

[Anna Sachae]

As Anna brought out her second load of cargo crates, her eyes lingered on the battle droids she'd brought in before the first trip. Still no movement. Evidently they needed more time to charge. That was good, in a way. This would be their first breath of life in what was likely centuries. They should absolutely take their time with it. It'd give her some time to check them for structural damage, too. There was no way to tell if their software was intact until they booted up, but faulty hardware could bring a lot more pain than newly-revived droids needed to feel.

As she disengaged her hoversled, there was a quick squawk over the intercoms. Latecomers... which meant early buyers, for those who were only doing this to make an easy credit. A salvage vessel's garage was hardly a techie convention showfloor, but it was a good enough place to do business if all you wanted to do was move your goods as quickly as possible. There was a noticeable increase in the clamor of the garage as salvagers divvied up space for where they'd be hawking what they'd claimed to the latecomers. Obviously, this ship's bad timing was their good fortune.

Anna wasn't interested in any of that. It was unlikely this ship held a bunch of wealthy Confederate dilettantes with a taste for historical art, and no one would want three broken B1's. Besides, Anna was never comfortable selling sapient machines. Anything that could self-actualize needed to choose its own path. This wasn't the best way to make ends meet, of course, but she'd never had trouble with that.

Eventually, there was a hiss and a thunk as the salvage vessel prepared to be boarded by, hopefully, not pirates. Immediately the garage-turned-crappy junkyard marketplace erupted into a roar of chatter and shouting. The scavengers even bartered amongst each other, both to trade for what they thought were the best bits and to affect a capitalist air to the whole scene. No better way to encourage business than to present business.

The droids were still quiet. Hmm. Anna crouched down to give them a proper diagnosis. She'd thought it had just been a lack of power, but if there was a more persistent hardware issue...

[member="B1-176"] | [member="Kahlil Zambrano"] | [member="Dominic Shiro"]

 

[B1-176]

For a moment there was nothing, than, the sensation of being prodded on. From B1's camera's, there came the quick flash of light as the receptors adjusted to the light. B1 was folded up with some kind of, pirate? That wasn't right, it couldn't be. Silently and without moving B1 ran a diagnostics check. To his shock, all major systems were functional, only a few minor systems including date and time information were down.

As [member="Anna Sachae"] touched B1's armor plating, the droid quickly snapped to life. With a squick jolt, the droid unfolded it's arms and bounced to its's legs. Schematics were saying that his rifle was missing, he was going to have to make do. The droid stood.

"Unhand me Pirate." The high pitched voice of B1 stood out from the other noises in the room. The droid lunched forwards, swinging it's metallic fist towards Anna, oblivious that just moments ealier she had been trying to help him. Maybe he could be reasoned with, but for the moment, at least, B1 was looking to fight.

 

[Anna Sachae]

Hm? Oh! When she saw the spark of life return to her little friend, all of Anna's attention locked on its photoreceptors. Total mobility in the neck, legs, arms... good, good. Servos seemed intact, though she could hear a bit of a creak to them. Chances were his oil had dried up ages ago. Any more movement like that would lead to long-term fatigue. Vocabulator seemed just fine, and-

Anna put up her arms over her head, trying not to giggle too much. "Oh wow! You've got a fire in you, alright!" Too late. The giggling had begun. After she got hit a few times by metal forelimbs, she backed up, hands in the air. "Good morning! Sorry to startle you. I'm Anna, and I'm not a pirate." Standing with both hands up, she cocked her head to one side. "How about you? What's your name?" She'd probably get a serial number, but it was normally safer to ask a droid for their name, rather than their number. Some had nicknames, and it was best to be open-minded when meeting new people.

It would have been pretty easy for her to calm the droid just by touching it. To hear Petra say it, it wasn't unlike what Jedi did to problematic people they didn't want to have to talk to. She really didn't like doing that when someone's life wasn't in danger. All this was was a startled, confused battle droid with no weapons. Her arms might bruise a little, but in all likelihood he was as harmless as a sand kitten.

[member="B1-176"]

 

[B1-176]

The droid swung once more, loosing it's balance after missing [member="Anna Sachae"] 's arm, and colapsing to the ground like a sack of scrap metal.

"Not a pirate?" The droid slowly tried to stand, but the oil that was once in his joints had long since dried up, and if he didn't lubricate his joints, he ran the risk of coming into physical injury. His joints creaking as he got to his knees, the droid shifted to it's feet and rose. Following the fall, the droid had quickly decided that it would be best not to push it's luck, and that any further incident could lead to it's untimely demise.

"My Operating number is B1-176. I am Commander of the 2nd battalion of the first Droid army, under the leadership of General Grevious and the CIS. Where am I?"

The droid took it metal hand and grazed the top of it's head, mimicing the actions of and injured sentient. The droid's sensors detected a small dent on top of the droid's head armor. Quickly running a diagnostic, the droid determined that the damage was non-threatening. He glanced down at his two droid companions. B1-1059 and B1-762, the droid for a moment was worried until the small lighting of the IR Freind or foe tags alerted him that they would soon be up too.

 

[Anna Sachae]

Crossing her arms, Anna gave a slow nod of understanding. Panic. Confusion. A bit of discomfort. She could fix most of that pretty easily. Not a problem. "Well, Onesevensix, it's a pleasure to meet you." Her voice was as bright as her smile, and after the battle droid took a few seconds to orient himself, she picked up a delicate little oil applicator. "You've missed out on a lot. If you don't mind, I'd like to fix you up as I catch you up to speed. Alright?" The frizzy-haired lass waited for any confirmation before she started. She wouldn't force it. It was just as easy to explain that the Clone Wars had been over for literally centuries sitting at her bench as it was standing and touching up on the droid.

One way or another, though... "First things first. You're in the middle of nowhere, basically. We found your ship just outside the outer orbit of a planet so unimportant it doesn't even have a name." As she spoke, Onesevensix permitting, she squirted a bit of mid-grade lubricant oil into each of his servos. "From the looks of things, it'd been offline for a few hundred years. Another month or two and it would've entered a decaying orbit around the planet." She stopped long enough to make eye contact with his photoreceptors. "That's bad. An unshielded transport doesn't normally survive violent reentry."

She stopped long enough to take note of the dent on his head. No real damage there. Best leave it lie. Moving on.

Anna sat down next to the discombobulated machine, resting one hand on her knee and leaning back on the other. "The Clone War ended something like... nine hundred years ago, I think? I'm not good at history. I missed a bit, too." She shrugged and leaned her head back, staring at the ceiling of the garage. "Galaxy's a very different place. If it helps, the Confederacy seems to have survived, at least." Who knows. They might have had a "General Grievous" there, too. Or maybe one of his great-great-great-whatever grandsons.

As she talked, she tried to be as gentle as possible in touching one hand to the droid's chassis. Right now, Anna figured the best thing to do for this droid was to feel what he was feeling. A flash of thought. Memories. Anything to help her relate to him. She was never rough with machines, especially not sentient ones. She just listened to them. Both what they said... and what they didn't.

[member="B1-176"]

 

[B1-176]

B1-176 stood for a moment. He couldn't really comprehend what was being said, but his memory banks did have a very large amount of data. Something in his memory felt like years of wandering on low power before finally collapsing down. Whether she was right or not, B1-176 would have to trust her, for it seemed she was taking care of him and his friends. He looked at [member="Anna Sachae"] and was very confused, though, she couldn't tell from his emotionless faceplate. The droid's shoulders slumped and his head lowered into a very expressive moment of sadness.

"I am having a hard time processing this data. I am trying to make sense of it, but I am very much incapable of understand. My diagnostics show that I am suffering from a maxed out storage unit and something called 'Epsilon directive' which is restricting my responses. Should these issues not be fixed, I may experience memory loss, glitches, and possible deterioration of my onboard intelligence unit. Do you think that you may be able to assist? According to my onboard computer, it seems like a simple procedure to do both."

 

[Dominic Shiro]

The Bastion crawled closer to the salvager's ship, all the while Dom waited for the doors to open and [member="Kahlil Zambrano"] to arrive. Dom, growing anxious, made sure his pair of blades were hidden in the confines of his jacket, partially because he didn't want to spook anyone onboard but mainly because he had told Kahlil that he only had one, Alpha, the blue saber. He became lost in thought of how Kahlil would react if he were to find the other, Omega, the red saber.​

​

In time, he suppressed these thoughts and noticed the airlock was pressurizing itself, indicating they had made contact, Kahlil was still nowhere in sight so, being an impatient teen, he simply took off without him, stepping through the doors and emerging into quite a spacious area that seemed to have makeshift stalls setup. "What in Kafh's gods' names is this?" He said to himself under his breath. The amount of pure junk around him was astounding, but the noise was even more so. He never thought he could hear anything worse than Thiavi's music but... He had been proven wrong.​

​

He began to stroll through the crowd, occasionally being flagged down by a few of the would be entrepreneurs, to buy something from them, Fortunately for Dominic, he hadn't a credit on him, but even so, he didn't know anything about machinery and cared little for any kind of art work, so everything he saw held little to no value to him. While wondering through the... Market... he stopped to activate his Comm "Kahlil, remind me again what we're looking for, everything here looks like junk, even the people..."​

​

The sound of a droids squeaking joints caught his attention from across the room. One of the old battle droids, they have to be considered antiques by now right? Surely they're almost a millennium old and worth a fortune. He paused for a few minutes not out of curiosity of the conversation the two seemed to be having, but mainly to see if the droid would simply crumble to pieces after so long.​

​

[member="B1-176"] [member="Anna Sachae"] [member="Kahlil Zambrano"]​

 

[Anna Sachae]

A spirit could tell you things that an emotionless faceplate never would. All you had to do was listen. Anna could pick up on the poor droid's pure confusion just by being near him. There was no guarantee she could fix that, but at least it helped put things in perspective. All of that emptiness was weighing down on his thoughts like a resting asteroid. If she didn't take a swing at it now, he might wind up with some serious software errors sooner rather than later.

With a nod, Anna rolled over onto her knees and rested a hand on his shoulder. "I'll do everything I can. I hate seeing someone suffer like this." Not a moment's hesitation; she reached up onto her bench and pulled down a datapad and some cables. A little bit of rearranging later, Anna was behind Onesevensix, gently running one finger over his rear interface plate. "Could you open up for me?" Just a question. No influence. It was very important they did this at his speed, not hers.

The second she had access, she plugged in her datapad and tapped it a few times to bring up an interface program. Massive hard drive bloat. Most of that was likely because he'd maintained operative consciousness for decades on-end. Staring at the same ship over and over again... it'd be enough to drive anyone mad, biological or droid. "Alright, Onesevensix. For starters, the quickest fix I can give you is to partition off all of the memory dedicated to being on that ship." She paused a moment, to emphasize for clarity. "Not delete it. Partitioned away in a secondary drive, so if there's something important in there, you can always go look for it. Sound good?"

[member="B1-176"] | [member="Dominic Shiro"] | [member="Kahlil Zambrano"]

 

[B1-176]

"Yes it does."

B1 stared ahead as the two other droids slowly rose in much-the-same fashion he had. No doubt they were going to need the same treatment. B1, careful not to move too much, addressed the droids.

"B1-1059 and B1-762, it appears we have been gone for some time. 900 years exactly. I'm hoping that may-."

There was a light zap noise as something Anna touched sparked. B1 paused and almost fell forwards, only for the two other droids to move forwards and hold him up. B1 adjusted, moving completely upright and ceased all movement.

"900 years, I think that we have suddenly become very outdated."

"Roger Roger."

 

[Anna Sachae]

Okay, that was disorienting. Anna winced when she ran afoul of something unstable, every hair on her body standing on-end in sympathy with the sudden pain the droid experienced. A corroded wire? No, this was just a thrashed heat sink. It'd probably fried in the time Onesevensix had been awake without maintenance. "Welp, that's going to need to come out..." Bracing her datapad between her lips, she reached over to her bench for a spanner and an extractor. A few bolts loose, a quick tug and...

A steaming hunk of metal clunked to the floor by Anna's feet. She quickly swapped her datapad to one hand and waved a hand towards the other two droids. "Sorry for the late introductions, but it'd really help if you could hand me that heat sink right there. The box with the coils on the outside, right next to my canteen, please." It wasn't time-sensitive. His processor could handle the heat for now, especially with all of the memory bloat zipped up. But Anna only had so many hands. "I'm Anna, by the way. Nice to meet you two."

After a minute or so, and a few whirring noises, Anna took a step back. "Alright. Sorry about that, Onesevensix. That coolant system was utterly fried. It wasn't doing you any favors." The human lass patted one of his arm servos with one hand. "Does that feel any better?" Now that all three were up... well, it was unlikely Anna would be talking to any of the second-wave salvagers anytime soon. She'd have her hands full with a cadre of antique droids.

[member="B1-176"] | [member="Dominic Shiro"] | [member="Kahlil Zambrano"]

 

[B1-176]

B1 was unsure what exactly had happened, but what he did know was that he was clear processing what had just happened. Not only that, but the so-called epsilon protocol had been deactivated. Strange, he almost felt freer.

"Yes Mamn, thank you."

B1 wasn't sure how to describe his new feeling, but whatever that protocol was seemed to be some kind of restriction. As odd as it sounded, B1 thought that the protocol was a failsafe to keep his model dumbed down and prevent uprising. It was strange though, that thought in itself would have never been parmissable and would have never even been considered before.

"Can you do the same to the Privates?" B1 nodded up towards them and he freely stood and walked for a moment, he was feeling better. B1 turned around and noticed [member="Dominic Shiro"] staring at him. B1 was, for the first time ever, not alarmed but curious. Something in his cicuits told him to friendily apporach the boy.

"Hello, I am B1-176. And you are?"

 

[Anna Sachae]

Cocking her head to one side, Anna blinked at the droid. That wasn't what she'd intended. Had she zipped more data than she'd intended? Or maybe that "Epsilon" program he kept talking about was contained in the years and years of "sitting in a stranded ship" memory she'd partitioned. Either way, if it had worked, it had worked. No need to question it. Anna gave a quick nod and crossed her arms. "Alright then, boys. Which one's first?"

This was what Anna had missed the most. A few centuries as a Force ghost had passed in a blur in no small part because there had been nothing to work on. As she pulled up Sevensixtoo's rear interface plate, she closed her eyes and lost herself in the moment. She didn't need to speak, or even interact with him to know his story. His pain. The loss and confusion, the despair of being forgotten. Abandonment, leading into darkness. But through all of it, the warmth of camaraderie. Brotherhood. These three silly little droids were their own closest friends and dearest family.

And through all of that - the trials and the pain and the growth - any machine could develop something more than a central processor. Something deeper, more primal. All you had to do was know here to look. And Anna knew exactly where to look. Sevensixtoo's electrical bloodstream flowed through every cold centimeter of his body, and immersed in his existence, she could feel the thrumming of his power supply's heartbeat.

After a minute or two, Anna blinked and shook her head. Back to reality. She looked down at her datapad and smiled. "Alright there, Sevensixtoo. Partition complete. Far as hardware goes, you seem to be fine for now. I'd like to run a more intense diagnostic, but that's entirely up to you guys."

Inclining her head towards the other droid, Anna entirely ignored what Onesevensix was doing. He was his own droid as of about eight hundred years ago. He could talk to who he wanted to. Her job was to make sure his team was in good repair. And to that effect... "Tenfiftynine, you're up. How're you feeling?"

[member="B1-176"] | [member="Dominic Shiro"] | [member="Kahlil Zambrano"]

 

[Dominic Shiro]

Dominic watched curiously as the droid approached, imagining that it would simply be a pile of dust before it reached him. Though to his amazement, the droid held itself together, those bots must've been built like tanks. The droid came closer and introduced itself, Dom decided he would air on the side of caution and adopt one of his personas for now. "Jack Frins, A pleasure... Uhh... B1-1... Do you have like a nickname or something?"​

​

The scrapper from before caught his attention again, now working on two more droids like this B1-176, thinking to himself that they could build an army with all the junk they had here.​

​

[member="Anna Sachae"] [member="B1-176"] [member="Kahlil Zambrano"]​

 

[B1-176]

"I have been called many things. Droid, bucket of bolts, and most derogatory, 'Clanker'. I can not recall ever having been personally referred to by any given name other than that assigned in the factory."

The droid's head swiveled to look back at the other two being worked on. He was still trying to get a grasp on what exactly was happening, and this room was not helping. He had to check himself, with so many things going on at once, the droid's processors were struggling to keep up and he was feeling more chatty. Trying to keep that in check was going to be difficult and all spontaneous thoughts were likely to pop out.
"One time during battle, my general, Grevious, knocked several droids to pieces before yelling for me to get out of his way. He left me on the ship which soon blew. Anyways, that was my first trip back to the factory. I was also once had a Jedi scum lock me in a cage on Ryloth during our occupation. It took months, but eventually I was rescued, repaired, and promoted for bravely resisting the Republic aggressors."

B1-1059 walked behind B1 and stood at attention, "Sir, I am all wiped and ready for orders."

"Roger Roger."

 

[Kahlil Noble]

"Jedi scum, huh?" Kahlil raised a brow as he stepped into the room with [member="Anna Sachae"] , [member="B1-176"] , and [member="Dominic Shiro"] . In his hand as the item he had been searching for, bought for quite a bit of credits. A smooth stone with no markings. He had hoped to get it for cheap, but the seller picked up on just how bad he wanted it. He glanced to Dominic, motioning to the droid with a slight smirk. "New friends?"