Chapter 6: Trash planet economics
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*Flashback*

“I can't believe he's still alive” Sparky noted as he scanned the young man on the ground for life signs. “I say we take its last arm, grab what we can and leave before it wakes up. OooOOoOooo, Shiiiiny.” a few sparks escape the war droids head as he leans over and pries the vambraces off the arms of the headless Mandalorian protector.

Floaty Answers,“Like I told you this ship belongs to senator Padme’ Amadala -”

 “What of it?” Sparky interrupts.

”What that means is that there’s a high chance someone is going to come looking for this ship AND its passengers. If we can strike a deal with this man we might be able to get off this disgusting planet and provide the mistress with the proper supervision and education she deserves. Besides, the fuel cells on his ship will do nicely for powering the protection network, a day longer and it would have died, exposing the artefact in the cargo hold."

The war droid lets out an annoyed groan and replies, "fiiiiiine, give it that 'first aid' thing you’re always going on about and let's drag this ship back to base." Floaty and sparky dragged the remaining bodies off the ship, with sparky all the while inspecting them and occasionally yanking off any cybernetic body parts he found. Sighing, sparky remarks, “organics are such inefficient creatures, so few reusable parts once they deactivate” shaking the helmet of the Mandalorian until his head unceremoniously plops on to the ground, sparky kicks it away before making his way to the speeder truck parked at the side of the ship, after dropping his haul in the bed of the truck, sparky gets in and manoeuvres his way to the back of the J-type. Tying a durasteel cable around the tail of the ship, sparky attaches the other end to the speeder truck winch and presses a button. The j-type gives a groan and sounds of scraping metal fill the air as the winch drags it out of the pit its currently in, Floaty hovers out of the ships bay doors yelling toward sparky.

"Help me carry him"

"Why?" sparky replies as he approaches floaty,

"Because I know the way you drive and this man is already in critical condition, we can’t have him bouncing around the cockpit of a ship before we get the chance to stabilize him." after strapping the young man into one of the passenger seats, Sparky starts the Speeder truck and takes off. "Sparky, why are there organic limbs in the truck bed?"

Sparky replies, "oh those? I thought we could put them back on the boy once we got back"

"Good idea but these won’t do, these are in no shape to be put back on to a human, besides you’ve probably already contaminated them with all the filth in this place." Floaty tosses the limbs off the truck, he looks back at the sorry state of the bodies fading into the distance and says to himself "No, that’s probably not a good idea."

*Flashback End*

“So where’s the girl’s father?” Atin asked Sparky,

“Unfortunately he died of wounds sustained during their escape shortly after reprogramming sparky.” A robotic sigh came from the droids speakers before it continued, “its fortunate for us that you’ve come along though, the network of modified sensor beacons would have run out of power and exposed us if not for the power cells we retrieved from your ship, we wouldn’t have lasted long against the scrappers had they found out about our location.”

Atin replied, “I'll ignore the part about stealing my fuel cells for now, but it’s too bad about her father. Someone skilful enough to reprogram an old HK-Series war droid, let alone have it actually function, could have helped me build a cybernetic arm and a set of legs to go with it, guess I’ll have to do it alone."

"Does the young master intend to build himself new limbs?" Seemingly coming to a realisation the droid continues, "Your file does mention that you have quite the talent when it comes to matters concerning engineering."

"How much information about me do you have?" Atin Questions the droid.

"Apologies young master, that information is only available to Shhhhhhh of Shhhhhhh" a now all too familiar sound of static rang out as the droid answered.

Atin was visibly agitated at this point, veins popping out on his forehead as he spoke to the droid, "I’ll be using whatever tools and materials you can provide to construct what I need." Atin commanded, "It’ll serve as payment for the fuel cells you’ve stolen."

"Why the nerve! Do you know how much the bacta we used on you was worth, you ungrateful meat bag?" Sparky yelled.

Looking at the canisters that had once contained a pitiful amount of the substance Atin replied to sparky with a sarcastic smile, "Not much I take it?"

"Things have a different value down here, that bacta was worth 3 months’ worth of rations" spits Sparky.

"He does have a point sparky." Floaty chimes in and floats into a position between the two, turns toward sparky and carries on, "According to the list of tradable items and prices you’ve provided me, the young master's fuel cells are worth our entire livelihood and then some. I believe you valued functional fuel cells as worth 4 fully stocked Safehouses, going by your, err, ‘measurement scale’ of course.” Seeing Sparky hang its head in defeat Floaty carried on, "Now stop picking fights with the young master or else you’ll end up making the mistress cry again."

Watching this exchange, Atin noticed the little girl peeking around the corner into the room, choosing to ignore it he started his first attempt at getting on the hoverchair. Refusing all help and after about 30 minutes of trying and failing, Atin finally made it into the seat only to notice that the control stick was on his right. A few hours later Atin had set up a workshop in one of the larger rooms, the room had at one time been a large kitchen Atin suspected once fed a majority of the crew on-board the dreadnaught. Being a kitchen the room had many power outlets, heating elements and multiple ingredient distribution ports, all capable of being repurposed and modified to suit his needs. Sparky was now leading him to what the war droid had named his personal collection. Atin followed on his hoverchair, sitting with his left arm awkwardly crossed over his chest as he fumbled at the joystick, chasing the war droid that walked at a speed which suggested he was trying to shake him off and barely keeping pace. What Atin saw as the door opened was rows upon rows of shelving that housed neatly arranged robotic and cybernetic limbs and body parts, creating a view hard to believe the malfunctioning war droid was responsible for.

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