"This... This is not like you." ADA complained. Her servos whinnied quietly as she had been doing for the past hour. "This is not what we do Draich. We don't scavenge for chit." She trudged on behind her master, mumbling to herself. Another gust of wind ripped through the dried out basin. What had once been a thriving lake had receded, dried cracked earth all that remained where the water had once been. "We had a perfectly good contract to kill that drug trafficker on Nar Shaddaa, but here we are looking for stuff no one wants." The droid kicked a large rock in frustration which went clattering along the ground kicking up more debris.
"Yeah well, after that last contract....." Draich said quietly to himself. "I just need a break alright. It still makes me feel disgusting." Draichs harsh blue eyes scanned the horizon. Several workers could be seen off in the distance, there was some activity, but not much on this side of the basin. Draich didn't know if that meant the area had already been picked clean or if no one had ventured to this side yet. He hoped it was the later. "We're getting paid good money to find relics. No blasters, no knives. No...." Draich's attention slipped, his gaze vacant as his mind revisited it again. "I just need a damned break."
He hadn't been lying about the pay. Ten thousand credits per artifact. Easy money as far as Draich was concerned, and he desperately needed something easy right now.
ADA shrugged her shoulders. "Humans. Ill never understand you all."
Draichs feet crunched loudly as he scanned the former lake bed, icy blue eyes darting left and right searching for anything. He squinted his eyes, shielding them from dust as another blast of wind ripped through him. His hearing left him as the howl of the gale roared violently in his ears. He shoved his hands into the pockets of his black leather jacket, closed his eyes and leaned into the wind, hoping it would subside soon. Gradually it did and when Draichs hands left his pocket they came bearing his cigarettes, which he promptly lit.
The smoke billowed off with the residual breeze as he took a long drag and continued his march for pay. As he placed his cigarettes back in his pocket he brushed the pistol grip of his T-6. He wore no armor today and wasn't looking for a fight, but his pistol and vibroblade still came with him, no matter where he went. No matter where.
"Come on..." Draich said silently to himself as he shielded his eyes from the sun and took another drag. "Give me something."
"You're not going to find anything. Its a damned lake bed. People don't drop important stuff in lakes." ADA quipped. "My joints feel like they want to freeze."
"Then go back to the ship." Draich snapped. "I swear on my life, if you don't stop bitching about every little thing out here, IM going to shut you down and bury you out here. I swear. I will fucking dismantle you and sell you for scrap."
"I love it when you talk dirty to me." Draich imagined if ADA had eyes she would be rolling them. She knew all his empty threats. He was having a bad month and needed to vent.
Draich took another drag and flipped his butt into the wind. Damned droid. He watched the butt sail through the breeze when something caught his eye. The butt fell to the ground harmlessly next to something grey. The object jutted out of the ground only a few inches, Draich would have missed it completely if he hadn't been watching where his trash landed. But there it was. A possible payday not more than three meters from where he stood. Draich looked back at ADA who returned the glance.
"Well?" ADA quipped. "This is the only thing we've seen since we got here."
"I know." Draich sighed tiredly as he started towards the object.
He kicked the object hard, a loud thud resonating from the impact. He kneeled beside it, feeling the texture underneath his finger tips. Felt like carbonite.
"I think we just struck gold." Draich said as he began to dig furiously with his hands. The soil refused to give easily so he drew his vibroblade and thumbed the weapon to life with a dull hum. Stabbing at the dirt proved more effective, breaking up chunk of earth better than his bear fingers. He cursed at himself in his mind though, this couldn't be good for the blade. To hell with it, he would buy a new one.
After twenty minutes of shoveling and picking at the surrounding soil he had finally managed to dig out roughly a meter of the object. It was a carbonite storage case. That much was clear. Its contents however still proved to be a mystery. Depending on what was in here, Draich was about to get paid some big money, he could feel it. He whipped dirt off the data terminal that was fused to the side of the slab of carbon. It still worked. He couldn't believe it.
"ADA, check the item manifest, I want to know what this thing is holding for me."
The droid silently took a knee and began to work the terminal as Draich moved out of her way. He reached into his pockets and produced another cigarette lighting it with a quick flash of fire.
"Draich." ADAs vocabulator inflecting concern. Draich didn't say a word, rasing his eyebrows in acknowledgement as he held the cigarette between two fingers as he took a deep breath. "We don't have a what. We have a who."
"What?"
"And judging from the look of it, that who is still alive."
Draich didn't know what to say or do. Twelve years in the Republic army and he had never seen or heard of anything like this. The hair on the back of his neck stood up and his pulse quickened. It was to strange. To damned strange.
"What do we do?" Draich broke the silence that seemed to hang there for ages. His winced in pain, realizing that his cigarette had burned down to the filter. He discarded the butt with a quick shake of his hand.
"We open it up."
"What? Would that kill them?"
"Do you care?" ADA turned, her eyes locking with his. "This person may have something on them we could sell." Draich bit his burnt finger hard, trying to discern the situation. Make a rational decision. Once again, he had no idea what to do. ADA let out a simulated sigh. "Unless the individual was critical before they went into hibernation, they should be alright. They'll have hibernation sickness, but that should be all. So, we going to open her up or did we wait for someone else to claim our prize?"
"Alright." Draich said after thinking for several minutes. "Open it up."
ADA began to work the controls, putting the container into defrost.
