Matuscarantos

  I reviewed the state of my newly manufactured and updated droid components. Everything seeded to be in order, and I was excited to get started.

  Over the st few weeks my mad dashes through the scrapyards had turned up some interesting finds. The fully intact head and torso of a C4 model Protocol Droid. Two different and unfamiliar models of humanoid droids highly smashed up. One almost intact AR-365 Enforcer model. It only cked a processor and memory banks, I was jubint that even its highly deadly arsenal of quad bsters on each arm was fully intact. A smashed Power Droid of unknown origins. And stly a M4-Xt Probe Droid that had been repurposed into a servitor with a blown power core.

  All the parts I'd found had been Scanned, then recycled, and then recrafted from bronzium and pstoid, then been further upgraded into phobium and cqerous versions. I recycled the upgraded parts and then hand crafted their repcements. Since I had to Summon extra parts of of the test versions, this took a lot of mana and time. I needed the extra summoned parts to provide enough phobium and cqerous, as finding those materials in my salvage runs was extremely rare.

  Why did I go through all this trouble, because I wanted to be able to immediately apply my Upgrade ability when I managed to get its next level. Plus there was also the utility of having all the parts and of my Droids being made out of the same materials for quick and easy repair or repcement, even if my mana ran out. While I loved my technomancy, I wasn't the type of fool that would count on always having enough mana to fix my problems.

  Before assembling the new droids, I added the most applicable of the upgraded parts into Red and the Power Hauler. Unfortunately there were some of their components that I couldn't provide upgrades for yet, but I did my best. I even added a few of the extra weapons I'd crafted to both of them. Red simply adored the new smoothness to his movement, and the slightly improved armor pting. The Power Hauler still didn't have enough of a spark to care. I was holding out hope that one day it would gain sentience.

  I was highly frustrated by Pal having to be left out of the fun, as he was simply made out of far more advanced materials, than I could upgrade. Thankfully the combat droid took it all in stride. "It's alright, Master. One day, I'm sure you will be able to give me a proper overhaul." His booming voice carried absolute certainty.

  Red spun around, whistling cheerfully. Adding his own brand of encouragement.

  I let out a sigh, and shook my head. I didn't necessarily share their confidence in me, but I didn't want to fail to live up to their expectations either.

  I now possessed a plethora of parts to py with, and with all of the cycles of updates finished, I was more than ready to build a couple of new droids.

  My first idea was to utilize the Protocol Droid's processor and base programming, combined with some of Pal's combat programming. I quickly assembled a droid that on the surface look like a typical silvery C4 series humanoid model, yet its actual function and performance was as a close-combat bodyguard. I added in all manner of nasty surprises for anyone getting too close to my new caretaker.

  Standing 1.7 meters tall, with an ovur head and big round optics, X4-T5 was an innocent looking droid. As such it was now less likely that anyone would think to have me leave the Protocol Droid behind. Its transtion functions were certainly a benefit as well. There were over a million intact nguage models in his databanks, and a few different algorithms for decrypting new nguages.

  All well and good, but my initial personality programming job had left him with a deep craving for violence and mayhem.

  "Neutral. Greetings, Master. Exuberantly. Shall we find some pathetic meatbags to sughter horribly?"

  Nope, nope. Too much. I spent another couple of hours adjusting his personality matrix into something passable for a Protocol Droid.

  "Hello, Master. I trust you are not working too hard. It wouldn't do for you to fall ill from overworking yourself."

  "Thanks X4, but I'm alright." I patted his shoulder.

  Yup, that was better, much better.

  With the second droid, I decided to go bigger.

  Starting with the basic idea of the AR Enforcer Droid, I scaled it up. Standing almost 4 meters tall, I added three extra legs to the current three, to add extra stability. Its heavily armored torso and head were one fused swept back block, though I rounded out its harsh edges for a sleeker look. I also changed it's optics to be more like Pal's. I copied the Power Hauler's four arm setup, with the two rger arms ending in medium quad cannon bsters.

  That made each arm more dangerous than the twin bster cannon on my speeder. The smaller arms ended in fixed curved bdes. On the top of its chassis were two six slot missile racks, sadly I didn't have access to any reliable source of the proper type of missiles yet. Lastly, I made sure it could compress down in a simple near cubical block so that it would be easier to transport.

  I tentatively decided to call him Heavy-E, or just H-E for short, after the concept of heavy enforcement. He was designed for when I needed to siege a building or a ship. And yes his cannons could bring down most things I likely to encounter on Tatooine, even in the deep Dune Sea.

  Thankfully, his base personality seemed to turn out okay.

  "Systems Online. Master, it is good to see you." His vocoder was a massive thing, thus his voice was equally massive. It almost blew out my eardrums in the confines of the Repair Bay.

  "It's good to have you onboard H-E. Go compact and wait in Standby mode until we have more space for you to run around in."

  "Of course, Master." It was amazing, given his size, that all of his servos and actuators were whisper quiet.

  It had taken a whole day to finish assembling H-E, and I was exhausted. I wiped my face off with a nearby rag. I was dehydrated and hungry, maybe I really did need a caretaker.

  "Master, I am detecting signs of tiredness. Please consider resting." X4's almost nervous sounding voice came from right next to me.

  I jumped. Too close! I'd been so focused on building H-E, I hadn't known the other droid was there. "Ah! X4!" I took a deep breath trying to calm down my pounding heart. "Yeah, okay. I'll take a break."

  After taking a sonic shower, I cooked myself a small meal while guzzling down a few cups of water.

  We were almost off of this pnet. We just had to make it through another couple of weeks. Then we'd have more than enough to leave. What did I have left to do?

  Let's see, I needed to put the speeder and trailer through the upgrade cycle. I needed to keep working on the two new worthwhile metal alloy ratios. I had one very exciting alloy to stabilize, and one slightly promising alloy to put through a stress test. I needed to find Red some astronavigation charts to study and a way to train us both in some starship engineering, or at least maintenance and repair. I needed to keep practicing my abilities. And stly, I still had one Mana crystal left to absorb.

  I supposed I could dey things and go hunting for other interesting pces on this pnet, but I could hear the stars calling me.

  As I drifted into sleep, I promised myself, for the millionth time, I'd get as far away from the Hutts as possible.