The Uncle's Return
Alex woke up to the familiar sound of landing engines. The low hum that made the windowpanes vibrate was too powerful for ordinary city transport. The air filled with the characteristic smell of ionized particles and hot metal—constant companions of ships landing in the atmosphere. He jumped out of bed and looked out the window just in time to see a battered "Dynamic"-class cargo ship landing on a private landing pad two blocks from their house.
The ship was old but well-maintained—its hull covered in space dust and traces of micrometeorites, but the engines ran smoothly, and the landing was flawless. The identification marks of the "Galactic Cargo" freight company were visible on its side. Alex understood—it was Uncle Garrek's work ship. Even from a distance, he could distinguish the characteristic streaks from Kessel's acid rains and faded patches of plating left by the radiation of distant stars.
"Alex!" his mother's voice, cutting through the gradually fading hum of the engines, reached him from downstairs. "Breakfast is ready!"
"Coming!" he shouted back, but didn't move away from the window.
A familiar figure emerged from the ship—a tall man in a worn leather jacket, with a graying beard and a confident gait. Garrett Corren, his father's older brother, was meeting the cargo ship after five years of working as a mechanic on merchant vessels. Even from a distance, it was clear how he surveyed the surroundings with the attentive gaze of an experienced traveler, accustomed to constant changes of scenery.
At breakfast, his parents discussed Garrek's return with poorly concealed anxiety. The aroma of fresh toast and Correllian jam hung in the air, but the atmosphere was tense.
"I wonder what brought him home this time," his father grumbled, spreading jam on his toast. "He worked on merchant ships for five years, and suddenly decided to come back."
"Kairen," his mother gently chided, "he's your brother. And he's always been a good uncle to Alex."
"A good uncle, but a bad example," his father sighed. "Trader, mechanic, adventurer... Not the most stable life."
Alex remained silent, but inwardly disagreed with his father. Uncle Garrek was the only adult who didn't consider his questions intrusive or his curiosity a flaw. Moreover, it was Uncle who taught him the basics of working with tools during one of his visits and told him how ships were built.
"Can I go see him?" Alex asked.
"After school," his father said sternly. "And don't be late."
The school day dragged on endlessly. Alex struggled to concentrate on his lessons, constantly thinking about his uncle. What had he seen during his travels? What worlds had he visited? What stories had he brought back?
Finally, the bell rang, and Alex rushed home, barely saying goodbye to his friends. After changing into casual clothes, he headed for the landing pad.
The door on the third floor of one of the houses slammed shut, and Alex involuntarily looked up. The figure of a drunken Zabrak flashed in the doorway, muttering something under his breath in broken Basic. Next to him stood a young Twi'lek, clearly embarrassed by his condition. Noticing the boy's gaze, she hastily slammed the door shut, but for a moment Alex managed to see a bare nipple flash through the opening of her robe. A strange feeling stirred in his chest, but he quickly averted his gaze and hurried on, not fully understanding the nature of this sensation.
The cargo ship had already left, but next to the landing pad were boxes of equipment and some unfamiliar devices.
"Alex!" a familiar voice rang out with a characteristic clicking of consonants, which his uncle called "space wolf talk." "Look how you've grown, kid!"
Uncle Garrek emerged from behind a pile of boxes, wiping his hands with a rag. He had hardly changed in the year since his last visit—only more gray in his beard, and the wrinkles around his eyes had deepened. But most importantly, his eyes still shone with lively interest in everything around him.
"Uncle Garrek!" Alex rushed to him, and his uncle caught him in a strong embrace that smelled of distant worlds.
"Well, let me take a look at you, my dear," Garrek held his nephew at arm's length. "Nine years old, right? And almost up to my shoulders. You'll catch up to your father soon."
"What is all this?" Alex asked, pointing to the boxes of equipment.
"Oh, this?" Uncle smiled, and his voice carried a characteristic intonation. "I've decided to settle down for a while, kid. Tired of constant hyperspace jumps. I'm going to open a droid repair shop. There's always a demand for quality work on Corellia, you know."
"Droid repair?" Alex's eyes lit up.
"Exactly, nephew. In five years of working on merchant ships, I've seen droids of all sorts of models. I've learned to fix what others consider hopeless. Want to help an old wolf set up his den?"
Alex nodded so vigorously that his uncle laughed his characteristic low laugh.
The next two hours they spent moving equipment into an old warehouse that his uncle had rented near the landing pad. Alex studied each item with interest—there were tools he had never seen before.
"This is a diagnostic scanner, model KL-36," Uncle explained, placing a complex device on the workbench. "It can analyze any droid system and find malfunctions at the level of individual components."
"And what's this?" Alex pointed to a device that looked like a metal glove with many wires.
"Neural interface," Uncle carefully took the device. "It allows direct connection to a droid's consciousness for deep diagnostics. A very rare item, I bought it from a trader on Tatooine. The cunning Toskenezer asked for half my savings, but it was worth it."
"Can I try it?"
"Not yet, kid," Uncle shook his head. "This is serious equipment. You need to learn the basics first."
Alex nodded, but mentally noted where his uncle had placed the interface.
While they were setting up the workshop, news came from the turned-on holo-projector. The announcer's voice monotonously listed the day's events:
"...today, a sex scandal involving Justicar Valorum from the Chommell sector became known. According to unconfirmed reports, the high-ranking official was seen in the company of several Twi'leks at one of Coruscant's elite establishments..."
"Those politicians again," Uncle grumbled, adjusting the scanner settings. "It's the same all over the galaxy—power corrupts."
"...merchant ship captains have announced a boycott of new transponders introduced by the Trade Federation. According to them, the new devices not only increase shipping costs but also allow tracking of all movements of independent traders..."
"Now that's more serious," Uncle listened to the news. "Transponders are the basis of navigational safety. If the captains are boycotting them, it's not just about money."
"...economic analyst Sim Aulay has announced an approaching galactic crisis. According to him, he had already predicted the fall in credit exchange rates on Coruscant and problems in the Nimban sector. "The Trade Federation has too much influence on the Republic's economy," Aulay stated..."
"This Aulay has been predicting a crisis for ten years," Uncle chuckled. "Sooner or later, he'll hit the mark."
"...on the planet Ryloth, protests continue against the introduction of hidden export taxes on ryll. Demonstrators demand the resignation of the planetary governor, accusing him of corruption and ties to criminal syndicates..."
"Ryll," Uncle said thoughtfully. "A valuable commodity. No wonder there are so many intrigues around it."
Alex listened carefully to the news, gradually realizing that the galaxy was a much more complex and dangerous place than they told him at school.
While they were setting up the workshop, Uncle told stories about his travels. About the worlds of the Outer Rim, where droids from the Old Republic era were still used. About trading stations where you could find parts for any equipment. About strange planets where the locals created unique modifications of standard droids.
"On Ryloth, I saw a dancer droid," Uncle said, connecting power cables. His voice took on a dreamy intonation. "The Twi'leks modified an ordinary protocol droid, adding flexibility and grace to it. It moved better than any organic, believe an old wolf."
"And on Coruscant?"
"On Coruscant, everything is standard and dull," Uncle shrugged. "Mass production, typical solutions. But you can find the most modern models there. True, for such money that it's easier to buy your own ship."
"And where are the most interesting droids?"
Uncle thought, and silence fell in the workshop, broken only by the quiet hum of equipment.
"You know, kid, the most interesting droids are those that work for a long time without a full memory reboot. They... evolve. They become almost alive. I saw an astromech on the freighter "Corellian's Luck"—R2-D4. He had been working without a reboot for twenty years. He not only calculated navigation but also felt the captain's mood, and even understood jokes."
Alex remembered these words, feeling that there was some important truth hidden in them.
A week later, the workshop was ready for work. Uncle posted ads in several districts of the city, and soon the first clients appeared.
The first was a fruit merchant from the local market—a stout man with a good-natured face. His household droid had stopped responding to voice commands.
"A simple problem, look," Uncle explained to Alex as he disassembled the droid's head. "The audio sensors are clogged with dust. Just need to clean and calibrate."
Alex watched the process carefully. Uncle worked confidently but unhurriedly, explaining each action in his characteristic dialect.
"See these crystals, kid?" Uncle pointed to small transparent structures inside the droid's head. "They convert sound waves into electrical signals. If they are dirty, the recognition quality drops worse than an old Gundark's hearing."
"And how do you clean them?"
"With a special solvent and an ultrasonic bath. But be careful—the crystals are as fragile as Nexu eggs."
An hour later, the droid perfectly understood commands again, and the merchant left satisfied, having paid twenty credits.
The next client was a freighter pilot—a wiry man with a weathered face and hands covered in scars from working with technology. His astromech droid had started giving inaccurate navigation calculations.
"This is more serious, nephew," Uncle said, connecting the diagnostic scanner. "Navigation systems are the basis of flight safety. An error in calculations can send a ship straight into the heart of a star."
The problem turned out to be a damaged memory module. Uncle showed Alex how to carefully extract the module, test it on a special tester, and install a new one.
"Droid memory is organized in a special way, kid," he explained. "Not like regular computers. They use crystalline matrices that can store not only data but also... let's call it experience."
"Experience?"
"Yes. Droids learn. Especially astromechs. They remember the specifics of each ship, the pilot's preferences, even anomalies in the behavior of various systems. A good astromech is worth his weight in aurums."
Alex pondered these words. So, droids were not just machines, but something more?
Gradually, Alex began to help his uncle with the simplest operations. At first, it was just handing tools, but soon his uncle entrusted him with replacing power sources and cleaning contacts. The boy quickly got used to this work.
"You have good hands, kid," Uncle said approvingly, watching Alex carefully remove a power cell from a household droid. "Precise movements, no rushing. That's important when working with delicate systems."
Alex beamed at the praise. Finally, he had found an adult who not only understood his interests but was also willing to develop them.
"Uncle, can I try calibrating the sensors?"
"You can, kid, but under my supervision. Calibration isn't just a technical procedure. You need to understand how the droid will be used, in what conditions it will work."
The next hour Alex studied the intricacies of setting up sensor systems. It turned out that each droid required an individual approach, even if the model was standard.
***
A couple of weeks after being allowed to perform more complex work, Alex made his first mistake. It was minor, but instructive. He forgot to disconnect the insulating circuit before replacing the power cell on one of the household droids. The discharge was weak—just an unpleasant tingling in his fingers, but Uncle Garrek, seeing this, froze with an expression as if Alex had almost jumped into an active plasma discharge unit.
"Kid," he said quietly, without his usual squint and jokes. His voice became low and very serious. "Come here. Sit down."
Alex, burning with shame, obediently sat on a stool.
"Do you think it's a trifle? A little tingle and that's it?" Uncle sat opposite him, looking him straight in the eye. "I'll tell you a story. Not to scare you. To make you understand."
He paused, gathering his thoughts, and his gaze became distant, as if he wasn't seeing the workshop wall, but something far away and terrifying.
"I had a partner about ten years ago. His name was Rick. A great mechanic, golden hands. We were working at the 'Zenith' repair station near the asteroid belt in the Eriadu system. We repaired everything—from freighters to private yachts. And we had one job—a faulty shield generator on an old freighter. The captain was too cheap to buy a new one, so we tinkered with it, soldered, resoldered the crystalline lattices."
Uncle Garrek picked up a wrench from the table, twirled it in his hands, but seemed not to see it.
"Rick was always careful. Pedantic. He checked all the circuits three times. But that day... that day something happened at home. He received a message that his wife was having problems on her home planet. He got nervous, flustered. And the job was dirty—a shield generator, not like fixing a droid. There were high-frequency emitters, power circuits under voltage, and crystals that, if touched incorrectly, could shoot out a charge..."
He fell silent again, and only the ticking of the old wall clock could be heard in the workshop.
"He forgot to check for voltage. A five-second procedure. He reached into the compartment with the crystalline modules to fix one that was crooked... and at that moment, energy was being transferred between circuits. A breakdown occurred, right through his hand. He was lucky that the breakdown happened inside the compartment where his hand was. The charge went to the compartment's casing, which he leaned against with his shoulder."
Uncle exhaled, and the exhale was heavy, as if he still carried that day within him.
"There was no explosion. There was... a flash. I had just turned away for a tool. I turned back at a gasp—and Rick was standing there, leaning against the compartment wall. His hand, up to his elbow... No, it wasn't torn off. It was there. But all... blue, unnatural, and some sparks crawled over it, as if under his skin."
Alex froze, unable to move.
"We took him to the medbay, of course. And then we took him away. They saved him, it seemed. He lives somewhere on the inner worlds now. But his hand..." Uncle Garrek showed his left hand, clenched and unclenched his fingers. "He doesn't have a hand. Part of his face is paralyzed. He speaks with difficulty. And he got off easy."
He stood up abruptly, putting down the wrench.
"Do you understand now? There are no 'trifles' here. There are procedures. And they are not written to complicate life. They are written to save life. Every point is someone's mistake, someone's price, someone's tears. Your little shock today is a warning. A whisper before a scream. Did you hear?"
Alex nodded, swallowing the lump in his throat.
"Good," Uncle patted him on the shoulder, and his eyes regained their usual stern kindness. "Now let's go. I'll show you how to properly disconnect, lock, and check absolutely all circuits. From power to signal. To the point of automatism. So that even if there's a war around, and you're fixing a kettle here—your hands would do everything right on their own. Deal?"
"Deal," Alex replied hoarsely.
***
All sorts of people passed through the workshop, and each brought their own stories. Alex quickly learned to read clients—who was willing to pay for quality work, who would haggle, who might cause problems.
Long-haul pilots were particularly interesting. They brought droids with unusual modifications and told stories about distant worlds.
"I bought this little guy on Nal Hutta," Captain Drake said, pointing to a small translator droid. The captain smelled of expensive cigars and exotic perfume. "He knows languages that aren't in the standard databases."
"Hutt languages?" Uncle asked.
"Not only, my friend. Also ancient dialects, trade jargon, even some ritualistic dialects. Sometimes it seems like he knows more than he should."
Alex listened carefully to such conversations. Gradually, he began to form a picture of a galaxy that was very different from school textbooks. The world was much more complex and interesting than it seemed.
One day, a man in exclusive clothing, but with cautious eyes, came to them. He smelled of expensive cologne, but under that aroma, there was the smell of fear—sour and sharp. He brought a protocol droid and asked to "completely erase its memory."
"A routine procedure," he said, but Alex noticed the tension in his voice. "I'm selling the droid, I want to remove personal information."
Uncle agreed, but when the client left, he looked seriously at Alex.
"Remember, kid," he said quietly, "sometimes people ask us to do things that seem simple, but actually hide something important. A complete memory wipe can destroy evidence of a crime or witness testimony."
"And what should be done in such cases?"
"Think. Analyze. And make decisions you can live with, understand?"
Alex nodded, realizing that his uncle was teaching him a lesson that couldn't be found in any textbook.
By the end of the month, Alex could independently perform basic droid maintenance operations. His hands got used to the tools, and his nose to the smells of the workshop. Uncle gave him his own set of tools—not toy ones, but real, professional ones.
"These are yours, kid," he said, handing Alex a metal case. "Take care of them. Good tools are an extension of the master's hands."
Alex opened the case and saw neatly arranged screwdrivers, calibrators, testers, and other devices. Each tool was labeled with his name. Alex felt as if he had gotten his first speeder bike.
"Thank you, Uncle," he said, barely holding back his emotions.
"You're welcome, kid. You've earned them."
In the evening, at home, Alex reflected on the past month. Working in his uncle's workshop had opened up a new world to him—a world of real technology, complex systems, and interesting people. He realized that his abilities were not just unusual—they could become the basis for a serious profession.
But most importantly, he had found a mentor. A person who understood his interests and was willing to develop them. Who didn't consider his questions strange, or his curiosity a flaw. Who spoke in the special dialect of a "space wolf" and saw more in droids than just machines.
Alex opened a file in his datapad and wrote down his latest thoughts.
He closed the file and put away the datapad. Tomorrow, after school, he would go to the workshop again. Uncle had promised to show him how to work with combat droids—they required a special approach due to their built-in security systems.
He fell asleep with thoughts of crystalline matrices, neural interfaces, and mysterious droids that knew more than they should, and about the importance of following safety protocols. The characteristic dialect of Uncle Garrek sounded in his dreams, and somewhere deep in his consciousness, an understanding was forming that his life had changed forever.