In the morning, I woke up and put myself together.

  Checking on the combat droid, showed that his power level was at 11%. The Speeder was down 30%. Tsk. That was one thirsty power core.

  I initialized the stand by mode on the big guy, and sliced into his programming.

  I'd never seen anything so complicated before. His contingencies had contingencies for their contingencies. That was the way everything was threaded all throughout his core functions. Then his behavior and personality sectors were... so yered that I wasn't certain I could change anything even if I wanted too.

  Just changing the owner position to my name was a nightmare, as it was cross referenced in 12 different seemingly unreted sectors of his code. And if any one of them didn't match, bad things would happen. Three hours into the day, and I still wasn't completely sure he wouldn't see me as a threat.

  Which meant I was very nervous turning him on.

  "Online. Protocol: Protect and Serve! With Extreme Prejudice!" His voice was a deep crion calling for battle. He scanned the courtyard lingering on Red, before his optics fell upon me. Their bright blue light dimmed for a moment, likely a sign his processors were working on a decision.

  I held my breath.

  "Greeting Master! Shall we challenge the dangers of this gaxy together, today?" His optics returned to their brighter state.

  I let out my breath.

  "Let maybe start, with just the dangers of this world. What is your model designation?" It wasn't anywhere in his code. That I could find.

  "This Unit's Model is... Cssified! This Unit's callsign is Padin 009!" There was pride there. This droid took pride in its own existence. Many organics would find this troubling, I found it interesting.

  I'd never heard of a combat droid's model being cssified before. Certainly infiltrator or espionage models might, but he certainly didn't seem to have been constructed for those activities. That was extremely odd. And yet his programming was insanely dense. I just couldn't see why you'd combined those functions.

  "Can I call you Pal?" I still wasn't certain I was in the clear with this mysterious fellow, but it wouldn't cost me anything to be friendly.

  "That is acceptable, Master!" It seemed most things were a decmation with Pal.

  "That's great, Pal. Our first job today is seeing if I can get at least one of the generators operational, and then finish charging you and the other droid up."

  Pal look around at the Homestead, at Red and at my Speeder. Then he turned back to me, "Master, I hesitate to bring this matter up, but have I been stolen?"

  "Legally you are salvage. You were abandoned for decades, if not centuries. Since I have recovered and repaired you, you are officially mine, though I'd prefer not to put it in those terms." It was best to be honest here. While he was unlikely to refuse cooperation, it wasn't unheard of droid that developed sentience to hold grudges, and eventually use proxies or situational troubles to settle those grudges.

  Memories wipes helped prevent those situations, but I wasn't fond of the practice. That was a personality being destroyed. It seemed wrong.

  Pal looked down at his right arm which he then moved fluidly through a series of movements, no organic I was aware of could mimic.

  "Ah, I understand. Acceptable. You must have admirable skills to have repaired me so fully. I remember being less functional than this before. I look forward to working for you." One thing that was becoming increase apparent, both through his speech and smooth motions, Pal wasn't a typical droid. Even if I wasn't inclined to treat him well in the first pce, it would be a good idea to be on my best behavior.

  I called over Red and we entered the entertainment room. Pal could barely fit through the normal size door, and that was only because of his joints being highly complex and folding or bending in bizarre ways. Important note, navigating the door didn't slow him down in the slightest. He was going to be a real terror in an actual fight.

  Slicing open the door that should lead to the outbuilding proved to be a waste of time. The tunnel was filled with rock and sand.

  I sighed.

  Red let out a low beep.

  "Its okay, Red. We'll try the other side, failing that we'll cross the sands." Sometimes things just don't work out.

  The other side was also a bust.

  It would be difficult for Red to get out over the sand where his rollers could get all clogged up. I rigged up a small sled that Pal agreed to pull.

  The outbuilding were between 50 and 100 meters away. They were pced that far out as a precaution in case of of catastrophic failure of the generators. While most types of generators on Tatooine were capable of running on a wide variety of fuels, almost all of them were using that fuel to cause a very small fusion reaction. It was only the advance shielding and safety programming that kept failures from being far worse.

  So while right now it was a pain to get to them, I understood why the buildings where so far away.

  Once I got the Power Loader up and running, I could get him to dig out one of the tunnels.

  With Red giving directions we marched out, picking a building at random. While his sensors could detect where the buildings were buried, without the buildings being powered up Red's sensors couldn't tell which buildings had the generators. And since his duties had mostly kept him in the repair bay, he didn't know which buildings were which.

  Getting to the first building showed we'd picked wrong. After digging it out we saw this one was a pump station for the plumbing and vaporator collection tanks. I checked everything over since we were already there. Just a few touches of Repair, and everything should be ready to go.

  We trudged towards the next building. Rather I trudged, Pal kind of glided over the sand despite his weight.

  I heard the sound of a bster going off. I whipped around and saw that Pal was aiming, his arm mounted bster, to my left. He had shot something sand colored and low slung with oversized cws and teeth. It looked something like a Rill and a little like a Scyk, but I didn't recognise it. It might even be said to resemble a very tiny Krayt. But I'd never heard of them being this small.

  I shivered. I'd never even noticed it, and Red's sensors hadn't picked it up.

  Red beep a low sound. An apology.

  "It's okay, Red. I don't know what it is. It might have skin that is reflective to your sensors. It's a good thing Pal was here though."

  "My optics are highly calibrated to detect movement, camoufge is rarely a viable factor against them. Shall we collect the spoils of battle?"

  I nodded. I didn't know what it was, but wasting any materials went against my nature. And everything had it uses.

  The next building we tried had a generator. It needed a lot of love, but I finally got it running after summoning a new regutor unit. While it wouldn't have been enough to run a fully operational moisture farm with dozens of vaporators, droids and vehicles to power this one unit would be more than enough for our needs. I topped it off with some deuterium. It should be good for quite a while.

  We paused where Red said there was a vaporator. I dug it out and fixed it up while Pal stood guard. As with the generator, one vaporator should be enough for my needs. Later, once I'd found more usable salvage, I'll setup turrets to defend these areas. A womp rat with a tooth ache could mess everything up.

  Once we got back to the homestead, I spped together a makeshift charging station. As Pal started charging again, I finished cleaning the power loader droid.

  Then I turned my attention to the strange creature, Pal had dealt with. It skin was finely scaled, supple despite the scales being hard as metal. In fact after further analysis, the scales were a organic metallic compound. Probably why Red didn't pick it up.

  Its muscle density was through the roof, coil upon coil of fibers creating incredible explosive power. If it had gotten close to me, I'd be dead.

  The cws and teeth were an even denser version of the same metallic compound the scales were composed of. They were amazingly sharp, and could cut through fibermesh easier than a vibrobde would.

  All in all, excellent materials. I'd incorporate the scales into my armor and make a few cutting tools out of the cws. And I might as well try cooking the meat. Nothing suggested it would be toxic.

  After a simple searing, I gave it a try. Not bad, not bad at all, smoky and sweet. Even without any spices this meat could be tasty. I did my best to preserve the rest with drying.

  Pal was now fully charged. So I hooked up the st droid to the charger.

  Pal asked to be allowed to patrol the rim of the homestead. I agreed, it would make us all safer.

  Meanwhile Red, had managed to clean and make a lot of little repairs to the rooms on his own.

  "Thanks Red, you're a big help." It was nice to show the droids they were appreciated.

  Red did his happy dance and continued working.

  All in all a good day, with only one near miss. Tomorrow, Pal and I would go exploring. I could only do so much without more materials.

  And finding treasures was the whole point of being out here.