11 years before the Proclamation of the Empire
Alex noticed the droid on his first day working in the workshop, but it was only a month later that he dared to ask about it. The old astromech droid R4-K9 stood in the far corner, half-hidden by a tarp and boxes of spare parts. Its blue casing had dulled with time, and its dome was covered with scratches and dents.
Uncle Garrek's workshop was a true kingdom of mechanical wonders and technological chaos. Along the walls stretched endless rows of shelves, filled with boxes of all imaginable sizes—from tiny containers with microcircuits to massive boxes with power units. Each box contained its own components: shimmering energy crystals emitting a faint blue glow, precision parts made of polished durasteel, sensor modules resembling precious stones in their transparent packaging.
The center of the workshop was occupied by a massive dark metal workbench, covered with scratches and stains. An organized mess reigned on its surface—half-disassembled droids lay here, their insides neatly arranged like pieces of a complex puzzle. Manipulators of various sizes coexisted with computational units, power cells lay next to holo-projectors, and thin fiber optics intertwined between parts like silver snakes.
"Uncle, what about that droid?" Alex asked, pointing to the corner where a silhouette was visible behind a humming energy generator.
Garrek followed his nephew's gaze, not interrupting his work on the protocol droid's sensor module. His skilled fingers continued to manipulate microscopic parts as he answered. Somewhere in the depths of the workshop, a diagnostic scanner hummed monotonously, and muffled sounds of jizz music—Uncle's favorite melody during meticulous work—came from an old holoplayer on a shelf.
"Old junk," Garrek shrugged, finally putting down his tool. "I bought it for fifty credits from a scrap dealer on Nar Shaddaa. Thought I could fix it, but it's as dead as an asteroid. Doesn't even turn on."
"Uncle, what is Nar Shaddaa?" Alex asked. "Tell me about your adventures there. Is it far?"
Garrek, usually so talkative, suddenly froze. He placed his mug down with a characteristic clink, and his gaze momentarily drifted somewhere far beyond the walls of this safe, cozy workshop.
"Nar Shaddaa, kid," he began slowly, and there was no joke or his usual "space wolf" squint in his voice, "is a hole in the galaxy where everything that has fallen off civilization collects. A slum moon. If something was lost, stolen, or wanted to be melted down so that no trace remained—it ends up on Nar Shaddaa. A crappy place. It stinks of waste, fear, and greed."
He paused, looking at his hands, frozen in their usual gesture.
"I had... an order there. A long time ago. Even before that whole business with Rick. I had to fly on a tip, look for a very specific part for a ship of one... client. Found it. Did the job. Got my credits. And got out of there as fast as I could."
"And that's it?" Alex couldn't help but ask. "What kind of part? And who was the client?"
Uncle looked at him.
"That's it, kid. The story ends there. It's better not to know what's sold there and who buys what. Sometimes the most useful knowledge is knowing when to shut up and look away. Understand?"
Alex nodded, though everything inside him screamed with curiosity.
Garrek, seeing this barely suppressed curiosity, grunted—more out of habit than from genuine amusement.
"That's good. Now, tell me, how are you doing with calibrating that holographic projector? You'll be interested in space and all that when you fly yourself. For now—here's reality," he poked the table, piled with parts. "And there's more than enough trouble with it. Or tidy up that corner over there."
In the corner of the workshop, as if in a junkyard of forgotten mechanisms, heaps of worn-out parts loomed. Robot manipulators of different eras and models intertwined in a bizarre metal tangle, fiber optics hung like technological vines, and wires of all colors of the rainbow formed a tangled carpet on the floor. Uncle Garrek could never bring himself to throw away this junk—in every part, he saw potential, an opportunity for future repair or unexpected use. The droid was buried under this junk.
"Can I look?" Alex asked, gazing enchanted at the mysterious droid.
"Of course, but don't spend too much time on it. Better to focus on droids that can actually be repaired."
Alex nodded, but mentally was already planning how to approach the mysterious R4-K9. Meanwhile, Uncle returned to his work, and soon the air was filled again with quiet grumbling—Garrek had a habit of commenting on the work of previous repairmen, and these comments were rarely flattering.
"What an idiot did this," he muttered under his breath, extracting a wrongly installed module from the depths of a protocol droid. "Connected the fiber optic to the audio crystal, and the power cable to the communication port. How can you work like this? Where's the respect for the craft? His hands must have grown from the wrong place..."
***
In the evening, when Uncle finished his work and went home, leaving behind only a faint scent of tobacco, Alex remained in the workshop. The holoplayer was still quietly playing a silly song about Twi'lek sadness. The melody was annoying, but catchy. Everyone was going crazy over this song.
Ah, these lekku caress others,
Ah, her tender hands...
Blue shoulders, blue eyes
"Separation, separation, separation!"
She danced in a distant cantina,
Twisting gracefully,
And now I wander sadly
Alone and formidable among the stars.
Ah, these lekku—like living snakes,
They once coiled around me...
But my beautiful maiden is gone,
And only pain and longing remain.
The chorus repeated with a trembling voice
Ah, these lekku caress others... Others... others... others...
Alex shook his head, trying to forget the image of the lekku. For some reason, at that moment, he remembered a nipple he had accidentally seen once. Ugh. He shook his head, trying to recall something even more annoying to drive the unwanted images from his mind.
Enough! I need to work.
He moved heavy crates of spare parts, each carefully marked by his uncle's hand—"MK-7 Series Sensors," "Low-Power Energy Cells," "Holographic Projectors (require calibration)." Pulling the tarp off the droid, Alex revealed R4-K9 in all its tarnished glory. The droid was an old model—more massive and angular than modern astromech units. Its casing showed signs of numerous repairs and modifications; each scratch told a story, each patch testified to adventures survived.
Alex turned on the diagnostic scanner—a device the size of a datapad, but significantly more complex. Its screen lit up with numerous colored indicators, and the air filled with the quiet hum of working sensors. Pointing the scanner at the droid, the young man began to study the readings. The screen showed a strange picture—the main systems were intact, the power cell was seventy percent charged, but all functions were blocked by some internal barrier.
"Interesting," Alex muttered, studying the readings in the flickering light of the diagnostic indicators. "You're not broken. You're just sleeping."
He performed a deeper scan, switching the device to detailed analysis mode. The scanner hummed louder, its sensors penetrated the droid's electronic architecture, and soon Alex found the problem. The droid's identification module was damaged, and the security systems had blocked all functions, considering it an attempt at unauthorized access.
"Smart protection," Alex admitted, shaking his head in admiration. "But not perfect."
For the next two weeks, Alex worked on R4-K9 every evening, turning a far corner of the workshop into his personal laboratory. His uncle didn't object—he considered it good practice, even if the droid didn't work. Moreover, Garrek sometimes came to watch his nephew work, commenting on the features of old models along the way.
The atmosphere of the evening workshop was conducive to meticulous work. The daytime bustle subsided, the other mechanics went home, and a special silence hung in the air, broken only by the quiet jazz from the holoplayer and the steady hum of the cooling fans. The work lamps created islands of bright light in an ocean of semi-darkness, and on the shelves, crystals and LEDs flickered in boxes, like a technological constellation.
The architecture of old droids turned out to be much more complex than modern ones. Each system had many backup circuits, as if the engineers of that era were preparing for galactic war. The components were interchangeable, modular, which made them more reliable, but also more difficult to understand. The light guides here didn't just connect parts—they formed a complex network where each connection had its purpose.
"They built them to last for centuries," his uncle explained, watching Alex work and grumbling about another shoddy repair on another droid. "Modern droids are simpler, but less durable. Production savings, a curse... Look here, what an idiot installed this stabilizer—didn't even bother to check the insulation!"
Alex carefully removed the damaged identification module, working in the light of a desk lamp that cast sharp shadows on his focused face. The crystal matrix inside was cracked, but not completely destroyed—thin lines of fracture crossed its surface like a spiderweb. Studying the diagram in the light of the holographic projector, he realized that he could not only restore the module but modify it.
"Uncle, do you have any spare crystals for the old models?"
Garrek tore himself away from his grumbling over a poorly repaired servo and rummaged through one of the countless boxes. The sound of shifting parts mixed with the jazzy melody, creating a unique symphony of the workshop.
"There should be some somewhere... Ah, here!" he pulled out a small box, in which lay several crystals on a soft lining, shimmering in the lamplight. "Try these. They're from the R2 series, but they should fit."
Alex took the crystals—each the size of a fingernail, but containing incredibly complex information structures—and began the painstaking work. Instead of a simple data transfer, he decided on a more complex task: to carefully modify the identification code, adding his biometric data as an additional authorized user. The work required extreme concentration—one wrong move could destroy the data forever.
Meanwhile, his uncle continued his battle with shoddy repairs, his grumbling serving as a backdrop for Alex's work:
"And how did this incompetent master's hands not dry up? He applied thermal paste as if he were plastering a wall! And this wire... holy stars, it's connected completely wrong! Is it really that hard to look at the schematic?"
After a week of painstaking work, when Alex's fingers knew every detail of the module by heart, he finally managed to restore the identification system.
He installed the modified module back into the droid, checked all connections twice, then thrice, and froze, placing his hand on the activation button. His heart pounded so loudly that it seemed to drown out even the jazzy melody from the holoplayer.
"Well, old man," he whispered, looking at the droid's dull casing, "let's see what you're hiding."
He pressed the button. R4-K9 twitched as if waking from a long sleep, hummed—first quietly, then louder—and its dome began to rotate slowly. The sound of working systems mixed with the background music, creating a symphony of technological rebirth. The projector eye lit up with a dim red light, then switched to blue, casting the surrounding details in cold tones.
"Systems... activated," the droid said in a creaky voice, echoing years of silence. "Performing diagnostics... Identification module damage detected... Repair complete... User identification..."
The droid scanned Alex with a thin beam of light that swept across his face like an invisible touch.
"Welcome, owner Alex. Access to basic functions granted."
"It works!" Alex exclaimed, his voice echoing off the workshop walls, making the crystals on the shelves flicker brighter.
Uncle Garrek, who had been watching the process, pausing his eternal struggle with shoddy repairs, shook his head in surprise.
"Incredible. I was sure it was hopeless."
"R4, show information about previous owners," Alex asked, trying to contain his excitement.
"Access to archives is restricted," the droid replied in a voice that echoed distant travels. "Higher-level authorization required."
Alex frowned. His modification had only granted basic access—as if he had received a key to the first room in a vast house of secrets.
"And what can you show?"
"General system information, basic navigation data, technical documentation."
"Show the navigation data."
R4-K9 activated its holographic projector, and the workshop air filled with shimmering stars. A star map appeared in the space between the shelves of parts, but not an ordinary one—it marked systems from unexplored regions that Alex hadn't seen in school atlases. The holographic stars mixed with the real glints of crystals on the shelves, creating the illusion of infinite space right in the workshop.
"This is a travel map," the droid explained, its mechanical voice taking on almost nostalgic intonations. "Basic version, without classified data."
Even the basic version was astonishing. Red dots marked unknown systems, blue ones—abandoned stations, green ones—worlds with unusual characteristics. Each point was not just a coordinate but a whole story, full of dangers and discoveries.
"R4, who was your last owner?"
"Captain Jake Cord, explorer. Status: missing in action."
Uncle Garrek paused his grumbling over another shoddy repair for a moment and listened to the conversation.
"Can you tell me about him?"
"Captain Cord was an explorer of unknown regions. We made many expeditions to distant systems. The last expedition... ended unsuccessfully."
"What happened?"
"I'm sorry, this information is classified."
Alex understood that the droid wouldn't give him more information without full authorization. But what he had already seen was interesting enough. The holographic stars continued to shimmer in the air, mixing with the light of the crystals and creating an atmosphere of cosmic mystery amidst earthly parts and wires.
"R4, can you copy the available navigation data to this chip?"
"Of course, Master Alex."
Alex inserted a blank chip into the droid's port and waited for the copying to complete, watching the indicators on R4-K9's casing flicker in time with the data transfer. The holographic map still hung in the air, its stars reflected in the polished surfaces of the parts on the workbench. The data was incomplete, but even it was valuable—coordinates of unknown systems, routes through little-explored regions, notes on unusual phenomena.
Meanwhile, Uncle Garrek returned to his work, and his disgruntled grumbling filled the workshop again:
"Copying complete," R4-K9 announced, interrupting the flow of uncle's curses.
"Thank you," Alex carefully removed the chip and put it in his pocket. "Now, go into standby mode."
The droid powered down, the holographic map disappeared, and the workshop returned to its usual state—shelves of shimmering parts, a workbench with disassembled mechanisms, piles of old spare parts in the corner. Only the quiet jazzy melody reminded that something unusual had happened here.
Alex began to put away the tools, carefully placing each one in its place—a habit instilled by his uncle from the first days of work. His uncle watched him with curiosity, temporarily ceasing his struggle with shoddy repairs.
"What are you going to do with this data?"
"I don't know yet," Alex answered honestly, wiping the scanner with a soft cloth. "But it might be useful in the future."
"Be careful. If this Captain Cord really went missing, then his data could be dangerous."
"I'll be careful."
At home, Alex placed the precious chip on the table next to his textbooks and was about to study it, but his mother called him for dinner. At dinner, his parents asked many questions about his work in the workshop—his father was interested in technical details, his mother worried about safety—then he had to do his homework on galactic history. When Alex finally finished, it was already late, and he decided to postpone studying the data until tomorrow.
But tomorrow there was a lot of work in the workshop—three broken droids were brought in at once, and the air filled with the sounds of diagnostic scanners, the hum of welding machines, and, of course, the disgruntled grumbling of Uncle Garrek, who found traces of barbaric treatment by previous repairmen in each droid. Alex helped his uncle until late in the evening, when the jazz music could no longer drown out his fatigue. There were chores at home again, and he put it in a toolbox, intending to look at it in the workshop.
A few days later, Alex remembered the data, but school exams had just begun, and there was no time at all. The chip remained in the toolbox.
"I'll look at it later," Alex told himself, but "later" never came.
A month passed. Alex continued to work in his uncle's workshop, honing his skills among the shimmering crystals and humming equipment. Sometimes he would catch sight of a crystal, remember the mysterious maps and holographic stars that flickered in the workshop air, and think: "I should really look at it." But there were always more urgent matters.
School, work in the workshop, friends, family—a ten-year-old boy's life was full of events. The data about unknown worlds and ancient mysteries seemed distant, unrelated to everyday reality.
"I'll definitely study it someday," Alex promised himself, pushing the chip deeper into the box.
In the evening, lying in bed, Alex sometimes remembered the day he first turned on R4-K9. Details surfaced in his memory: the flickering of crystals on the shelves, the annoying music (he still hummed about the lekku to himself).
"Maybe when I'm older," Alex mused, "when I understand technology better, I'll be able to hack the droid's defenses. Or find another way to get the full data."
After all, he was only ten years old. A whole life lay ahead, full of opportunities for discovery and exploration.