Coincidental Run-in

From TFC Galactopedia

"Start running, you little bastard!"

The droid known as R5-C6 muttered as he powered his servos as hard as they could down an alleyway.

Chasing the robot was its owner, a rather large, rather angry gorilla wielding a heavy-looking piece of pipe. The spacer had grown fed up with the droid's loud, insulting attitude, and had finally snapped.

Actually, what was said was more like "I warned you those were crap! But did you listen? No! You ignored me, and like a retarded Kowakian monkey-lizard, you wasted your money! What an idiot!", but that fact was of little matter for the droid now. Right now, not getting caught and battered to pieces took top priority.

The R5 zig-zagged through the alleys, making turns at random. Silently he thanked the Maker that his pursuer was far from sober, thus making it easy to lose the ape. the astromech muttered in binary.

He rounded another corner, only to run right into a stack of garbage canisters. They clattered to the ground, making a painfully loud racket. "A-HA!" a drunken voice shouted triumphantly in the distance.

Unleashing a few choice curses, the little droid motored down the alley, lamenting that twist of bad luck. He turned left...

Straight into a dead end. Well, not quite. The alley was blocked off by a short wire fence. There was also a bunch of discarded crates stacked like stairs placed right up against it... From the main panels on the droid's sides emerged a pair of long, powerful manipulator arms. The droid lifted himself up on the first "step" then reached out to grab the top of the fence.

Just then the droid's auditory sensors picked up something that sent a chill down his data bus: approaching footsteps. His servos groaning from the strain, the robot part pulled, part dragged himself to the top of the stack.

In a bout of odd physics, the little droid managed to pitch himself over the fence. As he hit the ground with an uncerimonious thud, the astromech was glad he had retracted his arms before impact. Once again the arms snaked out and hauled the droid upright. Suddenly, two very large, very hairy sets of fingers wrapped themselves around the top of the fence. With an electronic shriek of fear, the R5 fled as his former owner climbed over the fence. However, the ape's alcohol-sullied coordination made him land harder and even less gracefully than the droid had. The robot grumbled a few insults as he emerged from the alley maze.

He found himself on a wide causeway. Sentients of all shapes and sizes made their way across it, while vendors shouted sales pitches from little stands set up opposite the chasmous street. The astromech began to weave his way around the other pedestrians as quickly as he could, desperate to put some ground between him and his pursuer. A few people gave the droid puzzled looks, but the R5 didn't waste time explaining himself.

Suddenly, a drunken shout rang out over the market street. More eyes fell upon the droid, this time with suspicion.

Of course, blame the droid, the R5 thought. The inebriated gorilla swinging the pipe around must be innocent of wrongdoing.

Just then, a spacer standing in the droid's path spotted the R5 and reached for his blaster. He was too late, however, to stop the little droid from plowing into him. There was a flash of light, and the spacer hit the ground, unconcious and twitching slightly.

The R5 muttered as he retracted his arc welder.

By then, several other anthros had realized that it could be profitable to catch this droid, and drew their weapons.

A pair of blaster bolts splashed into the permacrete a few meters in front of the droid. The R5 was about to comment on the shooter's poor accuracy, when a third bolt scorched along the side of the droid's flowerpot-shaped head. With a screech of pain and fear, the droid realized just how much trouble he was in. He blindly swerved left, between two vendor stands... right down a garbage chute

The robot didn't even have time to squawk before he landed on a pile of refuse bags. His manipulator arms flailed about, trying to right himself, when he felt a pair of hands help him to his feet.

"Are you all right?" a young voice asked.

The droid babbled frentically.

"Whoa whoa whoa, bud, slow down. Need to hide? Let's see..." the anthro, a chameleon not much taller than the R5, glanced around.

Suddenly, the kid grabbed an empty garbage canister, flipped it upside down, and lifted it over his head.

"Hold still."

Was all the droid could get off as the chameleon stuffed the canister over his metal head. The R5 promptly fell silent as he heard a heavy thud and loud grunting- his former master for sure.

"Hey, you!" Despite being muffled by the canister, the ape's voice was still quite loud to the astromech. "You seen a droid around here?"

"Oh, yeah," the R5's savior answered. "I saw a messenger droid come through here yesterday, a maintanence unit this morning, hells, I saw a pair of protocol droids go by but an hour ago. Yep, this spot is great for seeing droids."

There was a moment of silence, broken by a snarl of frustration and the sound of retreating footsteps.

Several long minutes passed until the canister was lifted, revealing the chameleon was once again the only other person in the alley.

"Yup he went down that way," the young spacer answered, pointing to his right.

The R5 turned and headed left.

"Hey, wait!"

The astromech stopped and rotated his head back to look at his rescuer.

"Listen, I've got a ship I'm trying to run, and I could use a copilot. You interested?"

The R5 paused. He didn't feel like giving up his newfound freedom to work for another two-bit spacer.

But wait a microt... he said he needed a copilot. A partner. An equal.

The robot turned around, then rolled back to the chameleon.

"Great. You got a name?"

"Sure. And you can call me Zerry."