Pre-TL: The Last Master

[TWD26]

Nar Kaaga, a swampy and cold world that had seen little in construction. The bounty droid's database files said that the planet had once been under the control of the Hutts, yet quickly disbanded and ran as their empire began to fall. The wilderness would have been unbearable for an organic meatbag, but for the droid--such things did not matter.

The droid's receptors twirled around as he clanked down the ramp of his master's ship. "Observation: Only an organic with little options would choose such a planet," his electronic voice loomed within the empty port. "Correction: My matrix has found seventy five more suitable planets, this organic must be what your kind calls: a 'lesser' intelligence organic.." The droid's electronic words came off with a smug since of superiority, droids were far superior than any skin suit. His red eyes scanned over his master, a hunched Verpine, though any thought matrix's had been suppressed by in his inhibitor chip. The droid could scan hidden directives and protocols within his system, but did not have the ability to access them. His programming had been suppressed into a standard bondsman droid- A waste of my processing units surely.

His master said little, but motioned for the droid to follow him into the thick swamps of Kaaga. Readying a blaster rifle in one hand, and a blaster pistol in the other, the droid would begin to clank slowly through the muck--obedient and prepared to enact the guild's protocol.

tag: @Ecclessey

 

[Eccles]

Further up in the swamp a shuttle was slowly sinking into the stinking green muck. A young and gaunt rodian stood twenty feet away with tears in his eyes and a low desperate wail coming from his froggy lips. "But it looked like grass," he said, clearly still in denial that he had mistaken the swamp for a patch of solid ground.

After the events on Taris. The disbanding of the Tutch Hall Gang and the train robbery, Preef had spend almost all his credits on this shuttle in the hope to get back to Nar Shaddaa. Unfortunately he didn't have a co-pilot and he wasn't exactly a skilled pilot himself, so the mistake punching in the coordinates for the jump to hyperspeed was easily made. He wanted to land and give him some time to read that manual on hyperspeed travel while he searched the HoloNet for the correct coordinates of Nar Shaddaa. He figured a green planet meant it had a lot of grass. He figured wrong.

The shuttle stopped going down just before the muck could enter through the ramp -Preef hadn't closed the door- and it seemed like the swamp wasn't so deep for a person or ship to drown and fully submerge. Maybe a stroke of good fortune? No one would go to look for him on this planet, after all, because Preef didn't even know what it was called and didn't see any cities or spaceports on his descent. He'd be safe here, for sure.



@TWD26

 

[TWD26]

The droid had no concept of time, not in an organic sense. Sure, he could tell you the exact mathematics, but it meant nothing to the droid. He could spend years trampling through this swamp or seconds and it would feel the same. His protocols currently were focused on the rodian. The two hunters had spent three days journeying among the vast swamps, outside of the spaceports there seemed to be little of value here. A few water farmers and some exotic breeders and various beats that could tear up his processing units.

His master's tracking fob beeped only a few times, but it seemed they had been getting closer. A Genet poacher had pointed out that he had seen a ship soaring through the sky and landing within the bogs to the west of their position. It seemed likely that their target was there. "Assessment: The Taris Train Heist was a peculiar one...don't you agree master?"

The bug like bounty hunter only snapped and hissed, ignoring the droid completely. "Organics are foolish, but it seemed rather odd..to hire so many incompetent guns for one job seems rushed. They completed their job, yet they all had to scatter." His red optical receptors scanned through the thick brush as he clanked through the muck, continuing to speak, "Our target purchased his new ship almost immediately after the job, making finding him quite easy....In conclusion, an undesirable such as this target should be brought in exterminated--it would do the galaxy a favor to remove such a lesser being." His electronic words almost gleamed with excitement at the thrill of death and destruction.

As the two of them came over a small little hill, that was when they saw the ship and the rodian target. The bounty droid raised both of his blasters into the air, their barrels pointing upwards towards the sky. "Subparagraph 14 of the Bondsman Guild Protocol states that an asset shall turn themselves in peacefully when commanded. Do so now or face extreme termination..." His cold electronic voice boomed out over the maw.

tag: @Ecclessey

 

[Eccles]

Preef had a datapad in his hand and was studying the hyperspeed manual. He didn't make much progress, for he was still trying to progress through the foreword about "The Dangers of Hyperspeed Travel" and if anyone would've seen his face they'd know he didn't really understand much of it. "Oh! I'm never gonna get back to Nar Shaddaa at this rate.." the young rodian complained loudly, just before..

<<Subparagraph 14 of the Bondsman Guild Protocol states that an asset shall turn themselves in peacefully when commanded. Do so now or face extreme termination>>

The cold electronic voice was so loud it appeared to Preef as if the droid was standing right beside him and he jumped up in shock. "Okay! Okay! I'll come peacefully!" If there was one thing that the late Tutch Hall had taught him, it was that a droid was bound to their programming and terrible in realizing it when they were being deceived. Pretending to come peacefully could give him some time.. but then again, much of what Tutch had claimed in his stories didn't turn out to be true.

Sprinting the twenty feet back to his shuttle, including a five-feet jump to cover a distance of the muck he knew he'd sink in, Preef closed and locked the door behind him and started hyperventilating almost immediately. "Kriff, kriff, kriff-" he threw the datapad on his bed and took the blaster pistol from its holster, knowing that he had no choice but to engage in a fight. But only if...

"Okay, so the manual said that in case of landing in a swamp-" the rodian desperately tried to remember, "-make sure to warm up the engines enough so you can lift off with more power." Right, Preef immediately ran towards the engine room, which was only ten feet away, and put his left hand on the engine... cold. "KRIFF" He manually started the engine's warm-up procedure and then looked at his blaster. He need to buy time if he wanted to get off this swampy world alive.

Only a minute had gone by when the shuttle's door opened again with Preef standing just to the side in cover of the durasteel hull. "You got the wrong rodian! My name is -eh- Xanthippe Fiore!"



@TWD26

 

[TWD26]

The droid raised his blasters towards the rodian, his optical receptors scanning over the thug's face. Confirmation: Asset proven and confirmed. He watched as the alien began to comply. Analysis: I expected the target to put up more of a fight. But, that was when the bugger invoked some sort of craftiness and dashed towards his ship. The bounty droid fired off a shot, but it was too late--and pinged off of the ship's metal door. "Statement: It seems he appears to be taking off...Preparing to unload the arsenal," the droid began to limber towards the view of the cockpit, with both of his blasters ready.

But, his master persisted that they needed the target alive. Foolish organic, our target will get away if he's smart. The droid fired two shots towards the viewport, before the insectoid bounty hunter demanded the droid to stop firing, as the ramp fell. The rodian came out towards his master who had approached the target, who persisted he wasn't their acquisition.

"That is a negative, facial scans confirm he's the target...commence non-lethal acquisition.." His voice called out, but it seemed that it had fallen on death ears--the charade had been dropped.

tag: @Ecclessey

 

[Eccles]

A glimpse before he'd sought cover had confirmed that there were two hunters after him. Well, one hunter...and his talkative droid. Preef hadn't seen a Verpine before and yet it didn't really seem odd to him to have a walking stick carry a stun rifle. "Your programming is outdated!" Preef yelled and fired once just two feet shy of the Verpine, "Rodians look a lot alike." He didn't know why he was arguing with a droid.

Turning his attention back to the verpine he send another blaster bolt in the muck just a feet shy of the hunter's position, barring his approach of the ship, "Your droid is malfunctioning!" He was beginning to feel a bit desperate, which considering his line of profession, wasn't a good sign. Preef knew that it was impossible beating a droid in a fair fight, unless the swamp rusted his bolts, but taking out its master could mean very different things, too. Its talkative nature was clearly proof it had initiative programmed into its matrix and a memory core that wasn't wiped so often. Preef's mentor once explained it to him in detail, but that was what, six years ago, and he didn't feel like he was still required to know the finer parts of droid behavior.

Anyway, it seemed they wanted him alive, so taking out the master gave Preef a fifty-fifty chance of the droid standing down. The other fifty was it removing the non-lethal setting and blow everything including the shuttle up because it estimates that's the most efficient way to go about it.

What he really needed was to buy his engines enough time to warm up and so he took another potshot at the Verpine's feet. Anything to delay them. Anything to keep them far away he could shut the ramp and get the kriffing kark out of there.

@TWD26

 

[TWD26]

The droid watched as a blaster bolt sloshed through the mud, towards the insectoid hunter, his master was still wet between the ears and lacked the finer instincts it took to hunt--trust no one. How he survived for this long is a miracle, it seems the two of them are proof that the galaxy's organics are starting to falter. He readied his blasters as he moved towards the Rodian's ship, his metallic claw, rummaging through his bag as the Rodian began to throw any attempt at escaping the situation.

With little effort the droid would place a small tracking beacon on the hull of the ship before turning back towards the two of them, in an attempt to distract his careful planning, "Correction: My programming is completely up to date and functional." He readied his blaster, "I assure you my manufacturer guarantees top of the line production and capabilities. To assume otherwise is ignorance from an organic." This conflicting matrices are conflicting with my analysis and descision protocols.

tag: @Ecclessey

 

[Eccles]

Preef barely paid attention to the droid's long-winded explanation as to why his programming wasn't faulty at all. Truthfully, he didn't pay that much attention because he didn't really understand it. Maybe if he read it thrice in his own tempo, but not while-

-kriff! The verpine put a foot down on the ramp and while it hadn't said a word it freaked Preef out enough for him to take three potshots in quick succession. After the second he heard a faint sigh and then someone falling backwards into the mud. "Damnit-" the rodian cried as he peeked through the doorway and saw the Verpine laying in the mud with a scorchmark on his chest. "-why didn't you just leave?" Preef took aim again, because Tutch always said that when you shoot someone you better be sure they're dead, or they'll come after you with a vengeance.

That last shot hit the verpine in the unprotected midrif and as such Preef knew him to be dead, which only left- !!

Ducking back into cover, the young rodian quickly glanced over to the engine control monitor for the warming up process and then refocused on the swamp outside, but he didn't see the droid. Where did it go?

"Listen up, droid-" he shouted into the swamp, assuming the droid would hear, "-I have no beef with you! Go get a cup of oil or something and don't try to stop me!"

@TWD26

 

[TWD26]

The droid pulled away from the viewport area of the hull, clanking slowly towards the ramp where his master had approached. He couldn't make out the distress calls from the Rodian, but his firing should have been enough to signal that such an approach could prove deadly. Unfortunately for the bounty hunter it had proven to be just that. The droid watched as the blaster bolt struck through the midriff, tearing a gaping hole into the bug like alien--dropping him instantly.

The droid paused dead in his tracks, his calculations stemming over the prospects, various protocols and error messaging systems running through his central processing system. Error: Conflicting Protocol Procedures...Error...system...dead lock. The droid's eyes twitched for a second as the system fell into a conflicting cycle. It seemed programming and overriding a droid with several different personality matrices was not the wisest of decisions. But, it seemed that with a single shot, a loop had been broken, had the force intervened? Surely the droid had no concept of such a thing, but something happened in these murky waters that hadn't occurred to the droid before--self awareness.

System Rebooting....Refreshing all matrices in order, rerouting primary control to the operating core. The red eyes on the droid came back to life, all of his personality behaviors and memory collections had pooled together to function on its own. The droid's optical views shifted towards the dead hunter, a disgust forming on his face. Analysis: I wish I could have taken out that pathetic bug myself.

Though the sound of the Rodian calling out towards the droid caught the robot's attention. Was he really pleading for the bounty droid to leave him alone? Perfect, it seems the fool has relieved me of my duties..The droid played dumb to the thug's wishes, not revealing his new functionality. "Error Statement: Memory Overflow Error, Conflicting Error Resolution protocols, unable to unlock execution on the processing core until resolved." His tracking probe had been placed, now he'd wait when the rodian had forgotten about it all. Decision: Execute with Extreme Prejudice....

tag: @Ecclessey

 

[Eccles]

It was dead silence for a moment after Preef had tried to appeal to the droid. All the young rodian heart was the thumping of his own heart and the drops of sweat that fell from his head and onto the durasteel floor of his shuttle. Anxiously he spied a quick look at the engine monitor. They were warm enough for a heavy lift off and Preef almost experienced a nervous breakdown as he realized that it might just be too late, after all. Kriff, he knew he shouldn't have partnered up with the Tutch Hall Gang on Taris and that robbing that train was the stupidest quick-credits scheme he'd ever run. Well, if he died today it'd be the only one.. and the last one.

Suddenly he heard the droid giving an error statement and his heart jumped with joy as the elated rodian punched the controls of the ramp and ran for his cockpit. "No hard feelings, boltbucket-" he said mostly to himself as he reached the pilot's seat and saw that his ramp closed successfully and the droid was still standing outside, "-but I have a birthday date with the beautiful Christa." He was referring to a particularly beautiful purple Twi'lek who danced at the Moist Mirakula. She probably didn't remember him at all and certainly had never shown any romantic interest towards a Rodian, but a man was allowed to dream, wasn't he?

The warmed-up engines performed admirably and after a mere twenty seconds of nearly overheating finally managed to free the shuttle form the swamp muckus before quickly taking to the air. Preef's heartrate was finally beginning the settle a few minutes later when the shuttle rose through the atmospheres and headed for orbit.

"Alright, so where did I put that hyperspace manual?" Preef switched to autopilot and swiveled his char around to the desk with manuals before scratching his head. It would take him about ten minutes before realizing he'd dropped it on Nar Kaaga before dashing to the shuttle and that he never picked it up again. Oh well, second time is the charm, right? right!?

@TWD26

/ End Thread