The Droids Tale - SWG FanFic

The little droid drifted in the cold blackness of space. Alone.

Slowly ticking off its internal systems it became more and more aware of the fact it was totally and completely alone.

It could neither feel, hear nor see anything that indicated there was anything else within range of any of its senses. Nothing but cold blackness.

Running through the diagnostics for the low level power supply it noticed a small indicator trip over. A tiny red tell illuminated as the low level power supply began recharging the capacitors that helped operate the droids actuators.

Another, another, another. Soon a small bar display of red tells had lit up, casting a very dim glow over the droids maintenance panel. A short beep and the bar turned bright green. The capacitors were now full charged and the Power On Start-up Tests began running on the actuator circuitry.

Internally the droid continued checking subsystems, memory, motive power, all low level systems that permitted the droid to function its most basic tasks and helped support its more advanced functions. It wondered what those functions had been. It wondered if it had had any advanced functions.

The sensor sub array checked out with only minimal damage and now the small droid knew it was actually moving through space, tumbling slowly, but on a definite trajectory. The navigation subsystem told it that it had travelled, since becoming aware of movement a few seconds ago, approximately 20km. Quite an impressive turn of speed for a small metal body.

Optical and infra red sensors began to warm up, literally, in the coldness of space. As they began operating they fed information back to the NavSubSys which began interrogating the droids memory bank for any astromech star chart data.

Fascinating. They were travelling towards a large heat source. Ah, a star. One of the twin stars that formed the heart of this system. Logic dictated that, if they were travelling in a straight line towards the star then extrapolating that line back in the opposite direction would give an indication of the point of origin of their current voyage.

Very interesting indeed. They appeared to be travelling away from a small, collapsing cloud of gas. Electromagnetic and radiation sensors indicated there was metallic and organic matter within the cloud, much of it travelling outwards at a similar speed to the droid, but a large mass of material still sat at the centre of the hot gaseous cluster.

The actuator subsystem reported that it had finished its checks and there was 75% functionality across all systems. The shortfall was accounted for by the current non-functioning status of the left manipulator assembly. Despite repeated attempts the ActSubSys had been unable to establish meaningful communication with the manipulator and it had decided to close down power and hydraulic flow to the affected area to conserve resources.

The droid now began searching for an Advance Functions controller and found that it had three modules. One marked Defence one marked Offence. The Offence module was flagged as being highly dangerous. Best leave that alone until the DefMod was functioning then. The third Mod was flagged as having Priority 1. That sounded important. Better start with that one then.

On activation the third module caused a message to scroll across the droids display panel. The message indicated it was the property of one Ozie Antares, a pilot and that it’s last position had been as Astromech on their ship the Lost Ranger.

It now knew that its immediate task was to find and return to its master, Ozie. Where to look. Sensor arrays began checking for any homing signal, the memory banks were interrogated for more information. The NavCom chimed in with the suggestion that, if they were travelling in a straight line away from a gaseous cloud, which, incidentally, had now ceased to generate so much heat according to the Sensor Array, and their last known function had been as an Astromench on a starship, then it was possible that their master might be in that direction.

The droid considered this, saw the logic in the argument and began giving instructions to NavCom to calculate a solution that would arrest their forward motion, then send them travelling back towards the supposed ship and hopefully their master. NavCom snapped back that a solution had already been fed to the actuator circuits and only needed the droid to give the instruction to begin the manoeuvre. Only 50% of their available fuel could be used to complete the manoeuvre, in order to conserve enough power to halt their progress once they arrived at the ship. At best, NavCom advised, they had a small to negligible chance of completing the trip.

The instruction was given.

Small gas jets fired and stopped the droids tumbling motion. Heavier bursts of gas and a small explosive charge arrested their forward movement. They had now travelled almost 50km into space. In order to return to the ship they would have to fire all the gas stored onboard and also use the small rocket motor built into the baseplate of the droid. The droid was aware that there was a risk that the explosion and subsequent acceleration could, if there was more damage to its chassis than had been detected, could result in a catastrophic failure. However, the little droid also knew that it now had to find and return to its master.

The blast sent the droid hurtling back towards the site of the now diminished gaseous cloud. It was able to sense the large metallic mass and the smaller organic object inside. The power to the rocket was cut and the droid braced itself for impact.

40km. 30km. 20 10 5 1km 500m 250m 100 50 20…. Final adjustment to



Darkness.


Dim awareness. They hit the ship. They hit the master’s ship. The droid made a maintainence journal entry and scheduled the NavCom for some low level formatting and reinstallation of it’s operating code.

The droids sensor arrays picked up human speech, close, very close.

“R4?”

Bright greenish white light flooded the workshop bay, a humanoid figure was approaching. For some reason it appeared to be walking along one of the walls.

“R4 L7?”

The visual sensors, after a few moments of self alignment, focused on the tall zabrak in grey flightsuit. It was Ozie.

He released a restraining bolt and wrestled the R4 up into a vertical position.

“Arthur? Can you hear me? Let’s get you fixed up…. You hit the port engine nacelle pretty hard buddy. Good job the engine was out of commission after that pirate hit us or you’d have been so much chaff by now….”

The zabrak worked quickly, removing damaged plating, replacing it with salvaged parts from a crate under the bench. “That arm will have to go. Maybe I should fit you with a trap launcher after all?” His voice was warm, friendly and the little droid burbled a response…

11010010 10100101 01001001 11010001 10010010

“Yeah, it’s good to have you home too pal… Let's get the ship squared away and I promise we'll take a few days out for some hunting. Dathomir should be interesting, eh?”