I left the shop and exited the side street it was on and attempted to blend in with the crowd. While being on Silas gave me an unsettling feeling, I had to admit that it was fairly prosperous. A large portion of that fact, could be attributed to the endless need for resources from Cato Neimoidia, which was in the same region of the galaxy as Silas.

I continued to roam the city aimlessly, occasionally stopping to browse at any shops that I found interesting. I bought a few random mechanical parts or tools at a reasonable price and that weren’t so heavy as to make me unable to carry them.

I eventually came across another mechanical shop and decided to enter it. Once I did, I noticed several droids in various states of maintenance from the marginally functional, to the rusted straight through, were scattered randomly throughout the store.

The entire scene sent a chill down my spine, it looked like a graveyard of droids, I soon just shrugged off the feeling and started looking at some. It seemed there were a few other customers as well. I soon found a doorless opening in the wall and on the other side were more droids. As I explored, I soon uncovered a labyrinth of different passageways all lined with the metallic corpses of droids.

It gave me serious hoarder vibes, but I noticed dozens of parts that had some value and were dirt cheap for what they were with others being outrageously overpriced. My personal opinion was that whoever owned this store needed more than a few screws being tightened.

I passed a droid covered in dust and grime which was barely recognizable. I stopped as I passed it and stared at the slumped figure. It was missing a forearm but was mostly there. It faces felt familiar. It was only after staring at it for a few minutes I realized it was a GE3 protocol droid from the one of the old KOTOR games.

I looked at the price tag on it and saw it only cost a thousand credits. I placed my hand on its chest and several schematic-like images appeared in my head as if pointing out what was wrong with them. I lurched back slightly, staring at my hands for a second.

I guess that’s why Alva’s so good with mechanical stuff. Not only do I possess a large affinity for empathic abilities, but I also seem to have an innate understanding of Mechu-deru. It kind of makes sense now actually, is it maybe my slowly increasing connection to the force which has now made it clearer what has to be done to fix something. I just shrugged and mentally marked where the droid was. I walked back to the front of the store and asked one of the droids behind the counter, “Hi, I’d like to buy the dilapidated GE3 you have in the back.”

The droid then responded with a bit of sarcasm in its vocalist. “Sure sprite, and how exactly are you going to pay for it, huh?”

With a blank expression I just dropped a thousand credits on the counter. I then added, “How much to have it delivered to the hotel my folks and I are at?”

The droid seemed to ponder for a moment. “If it means getting rid of that grandpa in the back, how about nothing. Where is the place you want it?”

“Do you know the Numidian?” To which it just nodded. I browsed the store for a bit before leaving and heading back to my hotel. An hour after I arrived a different droid was there with the GE3 strapped to its back. It seemed a bit dumber and was made of a random assortment of parts which made it hobble slightly with each step. It just dumped the droid on the floor and proceeded to amble out.

“Hey! This was Expensive, you piece of fused trash.” I shouted at the droid ambling down the corridor, but it seemed to just ignore me completely.

I looked back at the pitiful droid sprawled on the floor. I notice its arm had been tied to its back with a few cords. At least that meant I didn’t have to acquire a new one. GE3s were pretty rare and coming across another one this cheap would be a headache.

I pried off its headcover and looked at the treasure trove of ancient components inside. It was all covered in a millennia of built up residue. How on Earth. Wait, I guess that’s not really apt anymore is it. Whatever. I’ll just keep it. How on earth this thing survived this long while still being in this good of a condition astounded me.

I took out each component one by one and separated them into, what was somehow working, what was salvageable, and what was either beyond repair or too expensive to fix. Luckily its data storage unit was intact and seemed fine, it seems this unit had an armoured hard drive for some reason.

After that was done, I started my nightly routines and went to bed. The next morning, I headed out to get some more tools along with the parts I needed. I came back with my arms and bag overflowing with random junk I had pried out of the hands of greedy vendors and decaying droid alike.

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In totals I had poured about one and a half thousand into this little project of mine. I cleaned everything that was salvageable and made sure to replace stuff like the processors, sensors and translation units, which had experienced significant improvements over a millennia.

I looked through its translation unit and found hundreds of long forgotten languages, but it was also missing hundreds of one in the replacement I got. I just shrugged and decided to install both. Once its brain was sorted out, I started work on its body.

I took apart each, motor, servo and piston and reassembled them while making sure to apply liberal amounts of grease. Once that was all done, I began the arduous process of slowly rebuilding it.

Days later, I marvelled at the droid in front of me. A wave of pleasure flowed across my mind as I stared at my handy work. Its silver metal shell, polished to perfection. Its central circle on its face with the quarter side panels and the two ominous green eyes. They weren’t the classic blue, but they would do.

I only had a day and a half to get this thing going before I embarked on my adventure. I uncoupled its head and plugged it into my holo-pad. I then began to integrate all the different components by creating interfaces for them to interact with each other.

I then stared to decrypt the hard drive but saw that my program stated four hours. I just closed my eyes and began to meditate. Slowly, I’m beginning to feel as if I can enter my mindscape with more and more ease. I sit at the current moment on the edge of a bank, on one side of the lake with the tips of my feet dipping into the water.

I look out on the lake with a calm expression revelling in the calm. I hear a noise behind me. I sharply turn my head. I hear a slight chuckle in the distance. I stand up and begin to head in the direction of the sound. As I wade through the sea of green brush as silently as possible, I eventually get to clearing. I see two ethereal figures. They are both instantly recognizable to me.

There blue clay-like bodies immediately clue me in, to who they might be. My best guess is some kind of manifestation of Alva and Riley left inside my soul. But before I can think any further, Alva looks at me and giggles before running off behind a tree and disappearing.

Riley turns to me and says, “Thanks, I’d just caught up to her.” Sarcastically before disintegrating into blue particles of light and blowing in the direction the little girl had went. I subconsciously reached out a hand to try and grasp the particles, but the few I caught in my grasp slowly just faded away as if they never existed...

Before I could contemplate chasing them, I entered reality, it had felt as if I had been pushed out. I was now staring at the 100% decrypted notification on my holo-pad. I decided to deal with the psychic residents later. For now, I was on a time limit.

I had a rough look at the droids code and noticed nothing malicious. I decided that it would be better to get it’s assistance when upgrading its own code since it seemed it had about sixty years of memory after its last wipe.

I reattached everything and it slowly began to boot up. It slowly turned to look at me and said in a slightly garbled voice which was barely understandable. “Now, who might you be?”

I just lightly smile at the droid, before saying. “I fixed you? Can you run a diagnostic check please, while I fix that vocalizer?” it just stared at me for a few seconds before getting down on one knee to lower itself to my level. I unhooked the panel covering its face and after a few adjustments I said, “Try it now?”

I droid brought an arm to its mouth as it let out a slight wheeze and then said in a polite tone, “May I know your name young one?”

“I’m Alva.” I responded in my child-like tone as I added some more grease to one of the servos in his feet, which was making a grinding sound. I then asked, “Might I know yours?”

The Droid seemed slightly shocked before saying, “Everyone just calls me, G-1A5-GE3.”

“Well, that won’t do now will it. That’s a bit hard to remember. Would you like a different name?” I asked and he soon responded, “I don’t mind.” I put a finger to my chin as I thought. What about Gage? No, to on the nose. I know…

“What about Giga?” I said with a smile on my face. Giga just let out a sigh before saying, “That is fine I suppose, those I don’t see why you would ask me.”

“What would make you think that?” I asked now genuinely curious. After a few seconds of silence, the droid responded with, “Aren’t you simply going to erase my memories. I can see in my logs that at least nineteen times my memories have been purged.” In a genuinely puzzled voice.

A few tears ran down my face as he said that, I closed my eyes for a second and balanced my emotions before responding while wiping the tears out of my eyes. “That won’t be happening to you. I believe that doing that to a droid is the same as killing a person. I refuse to do it without a valid reason, okay?”

There was silence for a few moments as Giga just looked at me while I just kept my gaze on the floor. After a few minutes I just said, “How’s your analysis.”

“I can find several dozen minor faults, though I am up to standard and in some regards beyond my peak.” I just smiled at that and said, “You want some software upgrades?”

I spent the next day getting to know giga a bit while we messed around with his software. It appears that the last bit of his memory was about him being a waiter at some restaurant before becoming a general translator for a businessman, but he can’t remember much after or before that.

While this galaxy had, spaceships, blasters and advanced robots. In some things it seemed like, the things from earth were superior. Take for example computers. The hardware would be beyond any Computer Programmer’s Wet Dream but the efficiency in which it was utilized was abysmal. With just a few adjustments and a lot of finetuning I could quadruple Giga’s Processing power.

I also added some heavy encryptions and a few Firewalls to help his mainframe along with using his original hard drive as a black box of sorts in case his electronics got fried. The next day, we headed to the ship and embarked on our first adventure.