Pick Me Up Again [Solo]

[Helmut Todstern]

Mustafar was a barren desolate planet that just happened to have life on it, but some days you had to wonder if the metal people outnumbered the fleshed ones. As Helmut looked out the window of his apartment on the planet below, the lava churning and bubbling and probably ending up in some large, useless pool of molten rock, he closed his eyes and sighed. He had been having the visions again, but this time they just wouldn't stop. They kept coming and coming, day after day, making the cyborg restless and frustrated. Maybe if he...

Helmut crossed his legs on the ground by the window, closed his eyes and focused all his thoughts on the moment, ignoring all the noises and sensations around him. Sometimes the best way to control the darkness of the Force is to focus on the neutrality between both sides, and through that he can better understand the shape of the darkness; its width; its height; its..

"Daddy."

Opening his eyes slowly, Helmut's eyes met his son's and he smiled. "Hello, Sanu. How was your day at school today?" They were in their Coruscant apartment, overlooking the former Jedi Temple and all the speeding ships entering and leaving the planet, the sun setting on the horizon.

"Daddy, where has Mommy gone?"

Helmut's smile faded, and he picked up his son from the ground. Stroking his hand through Sanu's hair, he whispered, "I have told you before about the gods, have I not?" Sanu nodded. "The gods have taken your Mother away, for they are fickle, and do not love you and I. But they love your Mother very much, and have taken her to learn their ways. The cost of this, however is her life, and for that she accepted, but only so she could look after you from above. So look above you each day on your way to school, and know she is with the gods, and loves you very much.." Wiping the tears from his son's eyes, Helmut smiled softly. "Perhaps you can help Daddy with his testing tonight?"

Sanu sniffed and snuffed, then looked at his father with still teary eyes. "Daddy?"

"Yes, Sanu, my son."

"Why don't you pick me up anymore?"

Helmut blinked. The sounds of lava from the nearby window crept into his ears and filled up the void where Sanu had been. Alone in his room again, Helmut simply looked out the glass, gazing at the flow of the molten rock. Ever bubbling. Ever flowing. Heat incarnate. And if he could, if he was organic, he would be crying. But he was beyond that now.

And before he turned in to sleep the pain away, he whispered to himself.

"Because I let you go when I shouldn't have."

 

[Helmut Todstern]

"Mr. Todstern prides himself on the quality and care taken to produce each droid, and only the finest techniques are used. Do you have any more questions?"

The protocol droid stared, patiently, at the two Neomodians in the reception room. Helmut was late for his appointment, and the two were visually distraught.

"If Todstern will not show up for our commission, we will find others in the galaxy would pay more attention to us."

"Gentlemen! I'm apologize for my lateness. Your time is money, after all."

Helmut stood in the doorway of his testing room, palms extended to them. "Now, about your commissions. Your secretaries sent us a copy of your blueprints, and I must say, your new protocol droids looks amazing. The purchase price, however, does not. May we lower it to 10,000 credits? With a 5% royalty?"

One of the Neomodians looked at the other and they began talking to each other, then they both turned and nodded. "A fair offer, from such an esteemed businessman."

"Thank you, both of you. Amela, will you show these gentlemen to the exit? And send their secretaries a copy of our verbal agreement, and my lawful representative in the Senate."

Turning back into his testing room, the door closing behind him, his mood changed instantaneously, a scowl across his face, his hands becoming fists. "Sometimes I hate Neomodians. Cowards, the lot of them." Approaching the table in the center of the room, he put on his working apron and began to finish work on the droid laying on the table: a small humanoid replica droid of a boy with blond hair and orange eyes. The droid's eyes turned to him.

"Father, will we play tonight?"

Helmut roughly turned the boy's....the droid's head back into its former gaze at the ceiling.

"We will play when you are finished. Now, be quiet, or Daddy will never play with you again!"