"Kck, Jank, hesea turmailo shickik." The green sentient pointed its hammer at us, while shouting. It was also jumping up and down, an action that seemed to have no merit.

  Two of its poorly designed droids came charging at us. Well, more like lumbering awkwardly towards us, as fast as they could limp. I felt a bit of pity for them, it wasn't their fault they were so poorly designed. However, I knew they'd try to smash us without remorse.

  Pal rushed to meet them with a ugh. "It is good to be forthright! For the... For my Master!" He crashed into the first completely tearing through the body of the droid. Completely destroying it. Pieces of it flew everywhere.

  The other droid wound up and swung its mattock at Pal. Who dodged by bending his lowest leg joints backwards, giving him just enough clearance to avoid the crude weapon. Then Pal used the same joints to spring forward smashing the second droid in the chest with his fist. Caving in the engine and ceasing the droid's functions. It was throwing off spark and caught on fire.

  Wow. I knew Pal was special but that was insane. Some of it was simply the primitive materials that went into these odd droids, but most of it was the amazing programming that went into Pal's design. His level of adaptability was staggering.

  "Fraket! Muutfer ibeen kpte." Wait, that almost made sense. Well, not really, but I sort of got the meaning.

  "Hey, could we stop and just try to work this out. I don't think violence benefits either of us here." I called out. Wanted to find out more about this being and his strange droids.

  Wait where did Red go? Did he run away? I could hardly bme him, probably the smart py. Astromech droids had never been designed with combat in mind.

  "Klipped chaine you Alion duggo." The being pointed at us again and the other three droid charged, but this time Pal just started shooting them with the bsters in both his arms. The loud sound startling the little green guy.

  Without shields or better materials these droids couldn't possibly hold up to bster fire, and were left as smoldering ruins.

  While the strange little being was watching in disbelief as Pal junked his droids, Red had snuck up on him. With a quick extension of his electro prongs Red zapped the green being until it fell over.

  "Great job, Red!" Red extended his working arms and did a little dance while beeping excitedly.

  "You were amazing too, Pal."

  Pal nodded, "Maybe now you understand, with me here you don't need to be sneaky, Master."

  I ughed. Most people didn't take well to being chastised by droids, but I didn't mind, at least when they were right. Pal certainly had a point.

  "I wonder where they're from. I've never even heard of anything like them." Which was odd, because there were only a few safe nes of travel through the Gaxy, and only three came to Tatooine. That anyone admitted to knowing anyway. Any sentient this odd, would have been a big topic of discussion.

  Examining the remains of the Droids, turned up some interesting results. They were mostly run by cogs and gears, levers and cables. Not a proper circuit in there anywhere.

  There was something about them that called to me. Each engine was centered around a small blue crystal. All five crystals still seemed to be intact.

  It took a moment for my mind to connect the dots. They were mana sources. They were unlike the first green crystal I'd found though. These seemed to radiate a small amount of mana constantly. I was fascinated to say the least.

  I put three of the crystals in my pocket. Then I started working with the least damaged droid. I Repaired it, but left out the crystal. Ah, I see these droids had been made a long time ago and tons of patchwork repairs had been made to them. Their original form was much sturdier, and could move a lot more smoothly.

  It was easy enough to see how the inner working functioned, but I saw no clear method of control. Where I'd expect a processor to be, or a memory bank, there were only a rge number of sigils carved into the inner shell of the droid. I then confirmed that writing was everywhere in the shell and on all of the gears.

  I looked at one of the mana crystals I'd left out. Hmm. Was it a magical control system? How did that work? Could I build one myself? Scan Machine returned mixed result. It understood the workings completely but didn't register the control sigils.

  Of course, it wouldn't be that easy.

  I had Red make a recording of all the sigils. That way I could study them ter.

  "Whazzat Haappennedo?" I turned to see the green sentient shaking its head, trying to clear its thoughts.

  Then it caught sight of the droid I fixed.

  "Whazzat! Goodea as neuwe? Howzhat?" Yup, I was definitely starting to make sense of the little beings speech.

  "I fixed it. It's what I do."

  It looked at me, it's yellow eyes seemed to sparkle. It hung it hammer from its belt and slung its wrench across its back. It reach into a pouch at its waist and pulled out a piece of paper.

  "Youse ssigne this forma. Iz won'ta chargeo youse for the damages." It shook the paper in my face. I was reminded just a bit of Koples in that moment.

  My eyes narrowed, and I snorted, "Not a chance in a Rancor's stomach." As if I'd ever sign a contract ever again. "Take your droid you couldn't fix and we'll call it even. Or there's the other alternative." I nodded at Pal, who leveled his arm bster at the greedy being.

  "No, no. Iz understand. Accept, accept! Call off your golem." He almost sounded normal now, other than it's voice being very high pitched. He held up his hands in surrender.

  I tossed the guy one of the mana crystals back.

  "Where are you from?" I both really wanted to go to see more of this weird tech and figure out the magic control system. But I don't think I wanted to be surrounded by more of this guy's friends.

  "New Ratchet. Far from here. Experiment with a Transtelepotraponder went wrong. Been stuck here a while. Couldn't find right materials to repair my golems. Or my Returntosender Unit."

  Having examined the droi... golems they appeared to be made out of really odd bronzium.

  "Maybe we can work out a deal. I'll fix your... ahem Returntosender Unit, if you expin and demonstrate the control script of your golems." Plus it would get you to leave so I could loot the pce.

  "How can you fix, if you don't know the runes?" He cocked his head at me.

  "Trade secret." His eyes widened.

  "Yes. Sacred thing. I see, I see. Yes, I accept." He nodded his head rapidly, making his oversized ears flop all about.

  I bit back a ugh. Despite his greed and aggression, this little guy was a vast source of unintentional amusement.

  We spent the rest of the day going over the runes, what they meant and how to link them. With Red recording every word and demonstration, I could expand my studies on my own.

  "Alright, let's get you home Izzy." That was his name Izzy Geargrinder.

  "Thanks to you Li-am. I probably would have been stuck here forever, without you. Sorry about attacking you." Izzy was almost becoming friendly. Almost.

  The Returntosender Unit was actually easy to fix. A few minutes of using Repair and it was ready to go. And now that I understood how the runes worked, Scan Machine worked better on the Unit as well.

  Interesting note, the Mana crystal powering the Unit was purple. I wonder what that meant.

  "See you again someday, Li-am" Izzy pressed a button on the unit and disappeared in a puff of green smoke.

  I really didn't think so. But the Gaxy was vast, and who can say what will happen tomorrow.