Noventa - A Star Wars Story

"Alright. That should be interesting."

"I think likewise. Sy, you and I will pay the authorities a visit tomorrow." He looked at both. "Do you have anything else to discuss with me?"

She nodded. "That seems wise to me."

Farkas drops the factory line. They'll make due without any outside assistance.

"I don't particularly want to deal with any Imperial remnants on a personal level. I'd suggest turning it over to the authorities and offering our mechanical and programming services if they wish to help with any plan they might come up with for dealing with the threat. The more they can appreciate us the more they'll respect our claim to the factory."

"To be clear, I have nothing against Farkas and Clementine prancing on the Noventian meadows holding hand and whatever appendage the droid has. You could even invite her over for dinner on the ship. But this factory is too serious business to use it as a playground for carbon-silicon buddying when the synth lady has a godfather."

He paused.

"I have the intact transmitter from the Viper. It hasn't reported being tampered with, so an I-class Star Destroyer can still call us anytime, and locate its position. Now, where should I plant it?"

Syzygy swallowed the rest of the fruit, eyeing the two men with concern. It wasn't the first time Sharn had angered another crewmember. It wouldn't be the last.

"We should keep a few options open, shouldn't we?" she spoke up. "Even the best of plans can be upended by factors outside of one's control. In such cases, it's good to have other avenues to follow and potential allies to call on."

"Your pipe dreams and personal restraints are your own, Farkas. We leave political preferences out of our common business. Fume if you must, but find a solution that does not jeopardise our plans." Sharn, with his pinging on autism scale manifesting in this particular brand of sociopathy, pouted half-coldly half-dismissively. "But you may see my wisdom of keeping third parties out now. The cost of cleanup is higher than non-involvement."

Farkas gives Sharn a withering glare. The same one he always gives when he has been truly insulted. The droid technician never made it a secret about how he felt about memory wipes and restraining bolts and the like. Tampering with a sentient synthetics mind in such a way was akin to giving an organic a lobotomy. He considered it a horrific practice. Sharn may as well have just told Farkas to literally tear off his own member and shove it up his own arse in front of the other crew. The normally placid programmer's mood just bottomed out into a pit of incomprehensible disgust and anger. He just continued to glare in a way that might make Sharn question whether Farkas might walk off the ship and never return to it if the Chiss ever suggested such a thing to him again.

"Very few. All involved have no interest in spreading the news around. And if you think building an A.I. trolley is too much for you, tamper with that Clementine to have no recollection of the factory business."

"How many people know about the blast door being open already? How long do you think it will take for word to get out? How long do you think it takes to construct a heavy load lifter droid and program it, after getting the required materials?" Farkas asks.

"This is a seedy place. Is it so hard for you to imagine a scenario when your droid spills beans to bar owner, bar owner sells information to scavengers and suddenly we have a lot of additional problems?" Sharn frowned. "Our advantage is in the fact that few know that the factory blast door have been opened, and what is still inside. It is plain stupid to give that away for some handy trolley service. Why don't you build your own droid?"

"Clementine is a bouncer at the Wookiees Codpiece in Providencetown. I wouldn't invite anyone to have a share in holding, but I'd be up for paying a fair wage for work. A class five load lifter with built in weapons could be a capable friend."

"Don't award too much of an in for profiteers this early into the process of our acquisition of the facility. We don't want competition to have it all served to them in droid datacores. Who does the droid associate with?"

"I'll do what I can, but I'll want Carmine with me. And I might invite a Load Lifter model I recently met to come along. We both share similar ideas on the rights of sentient synthetics," Farkas replies. "I'm sure he'd be willing to help me out. We hit it off."

"Do something to protect it from looters. There might be some security droids that need reprogramming to meet our interests. For the moment I am constrained by legal ramifications so you'd better take the initiative, Farkas." He took note of Sy eating fruit, though withheld reaction. Just steepled fingers a bit harder.

Zygy listened to them plan, chewing quietly on one of the fruits.

"Let's put Aja on that then. Perhaps we'll have to sell off our latest round of salvage. We can have her set explosives at entrances," Farkas suggests.

Sharn's lips twitched, hinting a smirk that never fully showed.

"That would be advisable. As long as we can secure them, and the place. There was a local man who felt like getting in the way, and looters may come."

He cringed.

"And then a poor excuse of the law enforcement dared interrupt, so we need to deal with that too."

"Can we keep one?"

Sharn nodded in recognition that it was basically his plan.