D I S R E P A I R

[Sor-Jan Xantha]

C O N F E D E R A T E S P A C E​

IN THE VICINITY OF MECHIS III​

The youngling had an entire star destroyer to himself.

Free-wheeling, the tow-headed boy went sailing through the interior corridors. Propelled by a pair of children's footwear, the former Master Jedi sailed around the bend in one hallway in repulsor-heelys.

The Intervention had just departed the annual shareholders meeting, which meant that the youngling-knight could be a kid again now that all the VIPs, guests, entourages, hangers-on, groupies, in crowds, out crowds, and crowd crowds had finally disembarked the ship. With the largely automated ship running a skeletal crew, most of the actual organic beings were housed in the port tower. In the main hull where the boy was skating through there remained only service droids and astromechs.

Now, the ship was en route to the Free Trade Zone in Confederate Space that centered around the planet Atzerri, where the company was opening new hyperspace transfit routes through the port there.

And possibly shifting its money laundering... er, completely legitimate banking operations as well. The idea of skirting around Confederate taxes, tariffs, import fees, processing fees, transaction fees, and the other assorted myriad of regulatory bureaucracy that had become associated with their business dealings with the Confederacy was always one that resonated well with the shareholders.

With the hyperdrive that he'd conned Jorus Merrill out of, the Intervention could make the trip in record-setting time, even as a significantly large ship. In the meantime, the ship made the best playground in the whole galaxy. It had holo-vid theaters, sports bars, tapas bars, hologame parlors. Suffice to say, the former Clone Wars General, Silver Jedi Commander, and Underground operative was not at all above passing out underneath the root beer tap of the Dirks and Blasters.

"Bridge to General Xantha."

Huh? Turning his head upward, as his name echoed through the intercom overhead, the youngling rotated so that he was skating backward... at least, for about ten seconds. Then he smacked into something.

Probably a wall. It felt very wall-like.

Or, a bulkhead anyway. Because space ship.

In any case, the boy bounced off the wall-bulkhead-solidly-solid thing and faceplanted. "Ugh." Then, popping back up to his feet, took a moment in which to look left and right. No one had seen that, right?

A janitorial droid holding a broom was just looking at him with one large ocular lens. Side-stepping, the tow-headed Jediboy tip-toed around the corner and out of sight, before tapping one of the intercom access panels along the walls of the ship. Clearing his throat, the boy straightened the front of his t-shirt before he announced, "Xantha."

Yeah, play it cool.

"We've dropped out of hyperspace to confirm our position and detected an object off the starboard bow. It appears to be a drop ship of some kind, but there are no lifesigns aboard."

Repositioning points were always out in the middle of no where. The literal middle of no where. "A drop ship out in the interstellar medium?" the child uttered, mulling the prospect over in his mind. "Tractor it aboard. I'm on my way," he added finally.

As the former youngling-knight walked into the hangar bay, he could tell that the drop ship had been adrift for some time. Decades? A century? Maybe multiple centuries.

A small hand reached out, feeling the cold, rough surface of the shuttle. Extremes of heat and cold, combined with radiation borne on the wings of solar winds had pitted and weathered the surface through repeated exposure without maintenance or upkeep.

As the boy paced alongside the strange craft, he worked his way around to the blast door that shielded the loading ramp. A pulse radiated outward from the child's hand, as the psionic senses of the Anzati traced the seams and mechanisms through the Force. As the echo of the pulse returned to him, the young master closed his eye and began to assemble an impression of the interior of the shuttle.

No bodies, but there did appear to be something humanoid-ish inside. If in pieces.

A protocol droid perhaps?

Opening his palm wide, the boy pushed his hand downward. As he did, there was a hiss of pressurized air as the airlock on the drop ship was undone through the Force. The blast door and loading ramp fell aside, exposing the interior of the shuttle.

Stepping inside, the boy found a partially assembled droid of some kind. Crouching down, the child moved a hand over the pieces. One by one, the droid started to come back together. Though, it was not until the torso had rotated around and the child had gotten a look at the faceplate before he realized that he recognized the model.

This wasn't a protocol droid. It was a battle droid.

Curiouser and curiouser. What was a BX-series commando doing alone in a drop ship? And how long had he been adrift in space?

Questions that were not going to be answered by continuing to stare at the thing. Reaching across the torso, the boy felt along where the neck joined the body for the switch that would activate the internal power source -- assuming there was any power left in the core.

Then, sliding back just a bit, waited to see if the droid would power back up.

[member="5U-K5"]​

 

[5U-K5]

A small hum resonated through the droids body as his core powered up and his photo-receptors slowly lit up. As his motor functions began to return, they were slow. He had needed maintenance before he left and now he'd been inopperable for... How long had he been offline for? As his body slowly powered up he looked to his databanks to see if there was a record of the time passed. There wasn't and what was worse there was a massive gap in his memory prior to his shutting down. Had someone tried to wipe his memory? How odd.

As the PMSR protocol kicked in to repair the lost data the droids startup checks mostly came up green, just the usual maintenance warnings which he ignored for now. Now was not the time to search for an engineer. He pushed himself up onto his feet, he stumbled a little as something was a little off. When the droid caught himself he caught the sight of someone else in the cockpit that he found himself in. He reached out and grabbed the heavy blaster on the panel in front of the seat and span to point the blaster at the stranger. At least, that's what he tried to do. Instead when he span around his arm disconnected at the shoulder and slammed into the bulk head to the side of the pair. The droid looked down at the offending apendage then back to the stranger.

A child, he could take a child with one arm, right? As he gave the child a proper look he noticed a light saber hangind from his belt. Perhaps he couldn't take him one handed. He straightened up proper and shrugged as well as a one-armed being could shrug, "I... come... peace?" The droids vocabulator crackled as he spoke, missing entire words out.


[member="Sor-Jan Xantha"]

 

[Sor-Jan Xantha]

From his position crouching on the floor, the tow-headed Anzat just inclined his head as the droid snapped upright.

Then he turned his head down as his eyes followed the arm that dropped to the ground. Was that why there had been some left over parts?

The vocabulator also sounded like it might be on the fritz.

Picking up the arm, the boy stood up and then looked for something that he could stand on. Hopping up onto a storage bench, the youth was high enough to where he could hold the arm out toward the shoulder joint. "Here, let me... lend a hand," the boy offered, flashing a cheesy grin even as he made the bad pun.

Then, more seriously, offered, "When I'm done re-connecting the arm, I can take a look at that vocabulator if you like."

It was remarkable that the power cell still had some residual power left. "I can get a gonk droid over here as well," the youngling offered. "Or there's a droid corral about two decks up if you wanna oil bath."

[member="5U-K5"]​

 

[5U-K5]

The droid's vocabulator crackled in what could possibly be discribed as a chuckle. He watched as the child re-attatched his arm rather skillfully. "Thank... Recharge... Helpfull..." Getting a boost to his dwindling battery supply would greatly aid his system reboot. Even his PMSR was running in power saving mode making it likely to cause errors, which could in turn cause many problems with his other protocols. Though it had recovered one piece of information so far, his designation.

Realising his vocabulator wasn't saying complete sentences he shortened his speech to minimum, "5.U.K.5." He said each character with a pause between and tapped himself on his chest with his attached arm. "Battle. Droid. Galaxy's. Finest." As the boy continued his work, the droid gestured to the light saber. "Padaw..?" The last part of the word was lost to crackling and fizzes.

[member="Sor-Jan Xantha"]

 

[Sor-Jan Xantha]

The youngling looked up into the droid's ocular sensors as the commando droid asked for a recharge.

Then, looking off to the side, the boy seemed distracted for a moment. Stretching out through the Force, the boy was feeling out the invisible strands that surrounded, penetrated, and bound the universe together. Tracing back the tenuous fibers of the proverbial spider's web until he had found the droid unit that he wanted. Then, planting the command to come to the hangar bay, the youth turned back toward his mechanical patient.

Marrying the arm back to the shoulder joint, the child concentrated as the parts and pieces each moved without the need for tools. Small fingers probed at the joint as it came back together. Holding his left hand out, a pocket flap on his belt seemed to open itself, as a multi-tool floated up to the waiting palm. Then, producing a small soldering torch, the boy shielded his face with one hand as he reached in with the other to solder the umbilical power line into place.

As the youth finished, returning the multitool to his belt, the gonk droid could be heard approaching the shuttle. Lumbering up the loading ramp, the power droid then stood there, waiting as the boy helped connect the droid to the portable charging station. As he did, the droid supplied a number-letter combination that he assumed was the unit's designation.

Then it asked if he was a padawan.

Not an unreasonable assumption. "No," the boy answered, somewhat wistfully. Reaching up under the droid's faceplace, the boy removed a small, palm-size device. It was the voice box. "Not anymore anyway," he added, as he turned the vocabulator over in his hands, looking over the circuitry. "It's kind of a long story," the boy added, making a few adjustments and then leaning in to replace the vocabulator back into the droid's internal workings.

"My name's SJ," the child supplied casually, before asking, "How's your internal chronometer? Can you sync with the ship's comnet?"

With a slight hop, the boy bounced up as he tucked his legs in, so that he plopped down on the storage bench in a seated position across from the droid. "I get the sense that you were adrift for awhile."

[member="5U-K5"]​

 

[5U-K5]

The droid watched as the child expertly re-attatched his arm. How did such a young being have this much expertise in both robo-engineering and what seemed like a strong influence over the Force? Surely it would take most of a lifetime to reach that skill level in either field. What a curious child.

The power droid appeared and he began to resupply his own power. As his voice was returned to him, he spoke again, "A pleasure SJ. Thank you for your aid." When SJ suggested loss of time he checked his chronometer, an error appeared. The chronometer wasn't stopped or incorrect, its protocols were gone. While this was a surprise it wasn't a worry, the recovery sytem would repair it. "It seems I have suffered a memory wipe of my core memory unit. Many protocols have been erased. I have no sense of time for the moment it seems. Recovery is ongoing."

He turned slightly to look at the ship they were in he could detect a comnet signal, but it clearly wasn't from this wreck. "This ship is damaged and I cannot connect to it. However there is another signal, I shall attempt it instead." As he connected to the larger ship he requested as much information as he could process, which was not very much right now. The PMSR was taking up most of his processing power.

As such it was pointless asking questions that the recovery could answer, so new information should be aquired instead. "Not a padawan? A sith initiate then? As I recall, light sabers are a relatively rare weapon. One of the very few things I envy of you organics."

As he pondered if droids had the ability to use such weapons he realised he hadn't properly introduced himself, "Ah! Proper introductions. I am 5U-K5 battle droid. Galaxy's Finest."

[member="Sor-Jan Xantha"]

 

[Sor-Jan Xantha]

A memory wipe?

Leaning forward, the tow-headed youngling just nodded as he listened with interest as the droid spoke. That the droid would have had its memory wiped before being cast out adrift in dead space made an already interesting situation only more so. If the droid's memory was a threat to someone, then the memory wipe would have removed that threat -- so why cast the unit out adrift?

Could the memory loss have been unintentional? A loss of hard disk integrity? "This is a corporate vessel. You're aboard the Corellia Digital ship Intervention," the boy explained, as the droid indicated that it had detected the ship's comnet.

A Sith initiate?

A soft, bubbly laughter echoed from out of the child. "I know that my terms of service is a little heavy-handed, but Sith..? No. No Sith here," Sor-Jan offered warmly. "And you, Kay-Five? Were you a battle droid in one of the droid armies? Or a privateer?"

He hadn't noticed a restraining bolt anywhere. And the droid didn't seem to be trying to recall a slave circuit, which indicated some level of autonomy. Normally, Sor-Jan's first guess when it came to a droid wouldn't be privateer, but there seemed nothing about this droid that would suggest ownership or control.

[member="5U-K5"]​

 

[5U-K5]

The droid considered the childs questions for a moment, "It is unclear, that part of my memory is mostly gone. I can remember fighting, but not as a personal droid. I assume some kind of privateeer then."

The boy spoke of 'terms of service' and the corporate vessel they were on. "Not an acolyte and not a youngling, yet you have one of their weapons. Curious. And this ship, The Intervention, belongs to a corporation, but as you're the only one who came to investigate me, are you the only crewmember?" This child's mere existance continued to raise more and more questions. "Apologies for all the questions, most of my processing power is currently trying to repair the memory wipe so I am unable to access this information from the comnet as quickly as usual."

[member="Sor-Jan Xantha"]

 

[Sor-Jan Xantha]

Curious.

The droid apologized for the questions. That indicated a unique personality profile. Sor-Jan had interacted with thousands of droids, and he couldn't recall the last time that one apologized for posing an interrogative. Most droids viewed them as necessary for gathering information for a task or function.

"Understandable. You do not have all the data points," the boy replied, as though weighing how best to respond them. While his habit tended to be to avoid talking about himself, it seemed that filling in some gaps would be the best way to address the droid's current thought process. "My name is Sor-Jan Xantha. I am an Anzat, a race which your memory core may or may not accept as real depending on the beliefs of those who programmed you. Certainly, organics -- near humans in particular -- have great cause to fear the fact that my species exists at all."

The very notion of brain eating monsters or soul hunters was neigh ludicrous. As ludicrous as it was replete in the repertoire of nearly every alien culture through the cosmos. As a result, the Anzat were viewed as just another such myth.

"I am young by the standards of my people. Roughly a thousand years ago I served the Jedi in the Hyperspace War. And again as one of the generals of the Clone Wars," the boy admitted candidly, without embellishment or elaboration. Indicating the weapon at his side, he explained, "This lightsaber is a reminder of my past, though I have since moved on to other pursuits. Fourteen years ago, I came into possession of a small computer manufacturer known as Corellia Digital. Today, it's a technology conglomerate that spans the entire Southern Galactic hemisphere."

Pausing there, the boy took a moment to offer a slight correction to that last point. "Save for those areas of the Southern Galaxy that are controlled by the Sith Empire, owing to its laws against Jedi-owned holdings."

Pity that. Voss, Mon Cala, and Vaynai had all been very good markets for their more leisurely catalog. In any case, "We're currently en route to the Confederate world of Atzerri, where we intend to engage in commerce," the boy explained, before adding, "We can deliver you there if you'd like to explore points of departure. Or you're welcome to remain aboard until your memory processing is complete."

[member="5U-K5"]​

 

[5U-K5]

5U quickly scanned his memory for mention of Sor-Jan's race, nothing matched the name. He expanded the search to include any mention of a race or legend of one that was to be feared, resembled human children and aparently lived for thousands of years. Still nothing, "I cannot find any refference to your race or even stories of such a race of yours. Perhaps my creators nor I have come across your kind before." He examined the stature of the boy before him with interest, "Curious a race could exist in such small bodies for such long periods of time. Camouflage perhaps? Hide amongst another race for a while and move on before the growth difference is noticed. Strange for a race that should be feared." He was mostly just thinking out loud at this point.

Listening to the rest of Sor-Jan's story the droid was somewhat surprised, "You just happened to be come the leader of a company? Sounds perfectly reasonable and requires no further questioning. But if you are not a Jedi anymore the Sith should have no qualms with your company."

"I feel as though I owe you a debt now for you offering me your hospitality, as such is there anything I can do to help you on your mission or journey? I am proficient with most weapons and very good with handling data." He paused for moment, "Or at least I will be in an hour or so when me recovery is completed."

[member="Sor-Jan Xantha"]