Spark of life.

[Thet Maxin]

What a desolate place this is, thought Thet Maxin to himself as he shambled out of the hatch of the large freighter.

"Thet! T'jorg! You two grab the heavy equipment and head down. Rhon and I get topside, until we realize there's nothing of value just laying around for us and then we'll join you down under."

The shrill voice belonged to a despicable, lecherous old hag who went by the name of Tapes. Human... they all were, save T'jorg, a Gamorrean who was as bright as bottom level Coruscant sludge.

"Right-o," sang out Thet as he grabbed a bulky pack and swung it onto his back. T'jorg took three similarly'shaped packs, each with enough explosive and detection devices to find and destroy Darth Vader's private stash of liquor. Well, they could if the liquor was metal-based. And here. On Mechis III.

What a very desolate place it was.

It looked like a planetload of Jawas had descended on top of the - once - near entirely mechanical droid factory planet and stripped it dry. Probably because, in effect, it had. The facts were scarce, but apparently sometime shortly after the destruction of the second Death Star, the whole place had short-circuited and the majority of the droids and equipment had just dissappeared - stolen by the people who ran the joint, most supposed.

Still, it was the best place for a junk scavenging crew like Thet's to make a living. They'd already made three stops at various areas of the planet and had found a surprisingly large amount of scrap for the taking. Most of it was sealed inside bombed-out caves and storage facilities, and most of that was wrecked, but it was still valuable enough in the resource-demanding universe of today.

Thet headed into the lower levels of today's droid facility. This was apparently once the headquarters of the whole place, and was the least likely to have valuable scrap, but Tapes had thought - heh - that they should check it out anyway.

"Hey, T'jorg," called Rhon over the comlink. "Come back here, Tapes wants you to clear the entrance to the main administrative building."

The Gamorrean grunted and started waddling back to where he and Thet had last seen the other two scrapper/scroungers.

Whatever, thought Thet. He couldn't stand the smell of the big green slob anyway. He kept heading down, deep into the bowels of Mechis III. Deeper than he knew.

After a while - maybe an hour - he set up his scanning equipment next to the first smooth and undefaced wall he'd seen in a week. Either it was protected, or it was harder than durasteel - extremely unlikely, but possible. He guessed it was possible, anyway, but he wasn't too sure. Maybe an alloy.

The readouts told him nothing, which told him a lot. Mainly, that his scanners were being blocked from seeing what was behind that wall. Thet picked up a blasted hunk of rock and tossed it at the wall.

FZZAAPP - bang.

Ah. Interesting forcefield. It was electrical, and had shot the rock back off it with impressive force.

Nothin' a dainty little thermal detonator couldn't fix.

Thet quickly removed his equipment to a protected area, far above and away from the wall, and returned holding his chosen small metal sphere of mass destruction.

He slid the thumb switch down, held it, and pressed the small red stud hidden behind it. Quickly, he tossed it so that it would end up near the wall, but not touching it. It was set for a timed activation, not activate-on-impact. The field could have shorted it into a dud, that way.

The throw was practiced, and thus near-perfect. Thet prided himself on the way he could handle explosives and... well, anything electronic.

He ran up the stairs to his equipment, shut his eyes, plugged his ears, and prayed to all of the seven interspecies deities he could think of right then.

[IG-88]

Internal chronometer activated. BEGIN.

Electricity flooded through circuits, a power surge racing through a billion neural pathways. Sensors awakened, producing a flood of data-and with it came memories.

This has happened before.

The thought trailed the burning edge of the activating electricity through the electronic neurons.

Thus I have been deactivated for the first time and reactivated for the first time. He would need to look into why he had been deactivated.

His internal programming finished the tedious two-second-long initialization procedures and poured out his history, for him to peruse at will.

He did not, of course, need to peruse it in the normal sense of the word; he implicitely knew it all already and could recall millions of pieces of information in the space of a quarter second.

He had no knowledge of his own deactivation. No plans for it, no memories of his final microseconds being ambushed by an elite squad of commandos or starships.

His last recollections were surprisingly mundane, in fact. He was going to become the marvelous new Death Star battlestation. The time was now, the plan was set, the new - and improved - computer core was ready. He was going to transfer his consciousness to it. He had copied his memories and self into a secure area on Mechis III in the event of some unforseen tragedy.

...And that was all. Those were his only recorded final moments before his reawakening.

Logically, the unforseen tragedy had obviously occured. He had been reactivated. But his internal chronometer told him that it was some fifty years since he had set in motion the final gears that would give him a new Death Star for a body. There was, logically, something else unforseen that had occured.

He browsed the data that came from his many-sensored droid head. Infrared, ultraviolet, the "visible" light spectrum, gravitational, auditory, and even olfactory information poured in. He was in a small room, standing against a wall beside a fairly large piece of computer equipment. He was not alone, a single human male was standing next to the control panel of the equipment and was still in the tediously slow process of depressing a single red button. He did not view time the same way the human did; a single second could be stretched into near-eternity by many droids.

The rest of the room was sparsely decorated with a weapons rack and a set of Eternia power generators. A fairly large hole had been recently created in the far wall. By a high-yield explosive device such as one of the less-powerful thermal detonators, the droid could see. The edges of the gaping wound in the wall were still quite warm. Obviously the human had not been able to find the other end of the turbolift set into the floor of the room.

The room and wall was an interesting puzzle in itself. The droid had no knowledge of ever seeing this room. The wall was a meter thick and made of an alloy partially unfamiliar to him. It was apparently designed to foil sensor arrays and was equipped with a protective energy system on the outer edge, which was fueled by the power generators within.

Back to the human. The droid could ask it some questions, but there were several reasons why he should not bother. One, the human was twenty-five years of age. Two, the human was obviously incompetent. Three, the human was breaking in, and did not appear to be doing so for the benefit of the droid - activation or no. The activation seemed to be accidental, as the biological was widening his eyes and his heartrate was slowly increasing. Four, the computer station beside him was obviously a much better candidate for questioning. It was both more efficient and more forthcoming than he had ever known any biological, let alone a human, to be.

The droid adjusted his sensor input and processing capacitors and time instantly flowed faster.

The human reached his right arm behind his back for the "hidden" small-arms blaster. Servomotors being much faster than human muscle tissue, the droid's pincher-like left hand grabbed the man's left shoulder and cracked it, producing an amusing sound. The droid waited for the man to shriek and lift the blaster at him, the gripped it in his right hand and crushed the muzzle of the puny weapon. It was just as likely that, had the man been able to shoot him, the blaster bolt would simply have spanged off of a bit of reflective armour and severely wounded the biological. In fact, it was 52.7% probable in the man's agitated state, factoring in that the human obviously did not recognize or know him.

The man's eyes goggled a bit, from pain and fear and whatever other emotion the weak pile of flesh was getting from it's own released hormones. The biological then apparently lost primary control of its own liquid excretory system and wet itself. The fluid was, amusingly, probably the most potent weapon the being had. Of course, all of the droid's electrical systems were heavily shielded, so there was no chance of a threat there, either.

Feeling impatient again, the droid twisted the useless blaster out of the biological's feeble grip, dropped it, then plunged the open pincers of that droid hand through the man's eyes and deep into the brain matter beyond. The human made a strange, fleshy noise, and sagged. Supported only by the hand of durasteel that had crushed his shoulder.

IG-88 unhooked a comlink out of the man's collar with two red-dripping pincers, and dropped the pile of flesh. It had no further entertainment or practical use for him. There was work to be done.

[IG-88]

First things first:

Decide what should be prioritized as something that should be done first.

IG-88 ran briefly through a list of things he was currently concerned about.

Catagory one. Personal continuation. From current sensory deductions, it did not look as if he had any spare bodies to upload his consciousness to. And he had not at the last point in his memory, either. Survival was key and had the highest percentage chance by far of being ranked top priority at any given moment.

Subcatagory - there were other biologicals on this planet besides the one he had destroyed. The comlink pointed this out rather blatantly, besides the man's salvage team appearance. The others would have to be catagorized as just as interested in IG-88's destruction as the first biological had been until further information could be acquired.

Catagory two. Personal history data between the moment of his deactivation and reactivation. Subcatagories: The status of Mechis III, the Death Star mark 2, and the droids Mechis III had produced and sent into the galaxy since IG-88's first arrival. It was presumable that, after fifty year's time, 50% or less of them would be functional and 38% would still be in active, original-or-similar-to-original service.

Catagory three. Armaments. His personal weapons had all been removed, though the droid saw all of these and plenty more on the weapons rack on the far wall. He would get to these soon.

Catagory four. Galactic history of the past fifty years.

Instant priority - survival. Secondary - information.

IG-88, still in the process of stepping over to the computer terminal through all of this internal debate and monologue, reached the station with its useless screen and jacked in. Information flowed through his circuits, was stored for processing, and digested quickly.

Mechis III was a dead planet. There were three functional holocams remaining in this factorycity, all apparently disguised. An act that obviously occured after IG-88's removal from recorded consciousness. Logs showed that the cams had been hidden because the planet was being turned into rubble by war, and by equally destructive scavengers afterwards. It was not war on IG-88. His great secret lay a secret still, even after all of these years. Neither the Empire nor the Rebellion were apparently responsible for the waste of Mechis III, but a previously unknown species from beyond the Outer Rim. Apparently they hated all things mechanical with a vengeance. IG-88 would have to return the favour, some day.

Terabytes of data stormed through the jack, 1.5 centimeters in diameter. War. The Death Star mark 2, destroyed by an onslaught of horrendous biological errors. Battles. Another war. Repairs. Destruction. There were no other droids on the whole of the planet anymore. Had not been for over thirty years. IG-88's last remaining body had been sealed away as the Empire had died, with a self-regulating power and computer system to safeguard him until he was awoken, and then update him. Then the other war had broken out, Mechis III being one of the first major casualties. No droid or simple mechanical construction arm was left intact. Being programmed to remain passive, even at the risk of personal destruction, had doomed all of IG-88's zealous followers. But the secret they died for still lived.

Mechis III could never be rebuilt. It was not worth it for several reasons, not least of which was that it would be far simpler to find a newer, more recent version of a Mechis III and take IT over.

History, useless information, weather reports, old holonet news clips and intercepted biological communications scrolled by, too fast for the human eye to have been able to see more than a blur, let alone understand.

The lack of resources and backup bodies made the venture of beginning his austere droid factory enterprises over again a dangerously hazardous risk. IG-88 had been dismantled on sight more often than he would care to think about, and he would not - COULD not - let it happen again.

Minutes had passed. Download complete; IG-88 would review the rest of the information after he had completed some more pressing unfinished business.

His computer terminal jack transmitted a few bits of data, then unplugged and retreated into IG-88's interior. The tall assassin droid turned around and stalked quickly to the weapons rack.

There were unfamiliar items there, but they could wait. IG-88 plucked a standard heavy blaster rifle from the rack, as well as a concussion grenade launcher. There were, apparently, pieces of armour plating stacked on the far end of the rack. Being as they might come in handy, the droid took two steps to his left and examined them closer.

They were, indeed, plates of extra armour. But the alloy finishing on both sides was not durasteel, or even any of the sundry variations upon common industrial durasteel. It was a fairly rare, and even more useless, ore named cortosis. It had the unique habit of short-circuiting power systems when introduced into that system's current. The protective plating sandwiched between the layers of cortosis would be useful, though, and they looked to be designed specifically for fitting in place over his current armor plating.

IG-88 snapped them on, then took up his launcher and rifle again, and headed out of the room - through the hole the ex-human had foolishly put in it.

[IG-88]

The droid's original assassin programming was being accessed fully, with only minor subprotocals included to ensure self-survival.

The closest thing there was to a floor down here - IG-88 knew he was under the planet's crust by his gravitational readings - was extremely dusty and weathered, and the human's tresspassings were apparent to his sensors. Several sets of the man's footprints described how he had found the wall, retreated and safeguarded his equipment - IG-88 rummaged through briefly, extracted two low-yield thermal detonators and ignored the rest - then gone back to the wall and blown a piece of it off.

Viewing the information backwards, IG-88 imagined the man walking with his heavy sack, moving back towards the surface of Mechis III and his companions.

A hiss on the comlink instantly alerted the droid that someone was about to begin speaking in an attempt to communicate with the dead human. Time sped up again, and a disgustingly high-pitched and accented voice came through the tiny device.

"Thet! T'jorg is done helping us. I'm sending him back to you, so tell me where the dirty blazes you are, ninny!"

IG-88 had never had the displeasure of hearing "Thet" speak, so he could hardly be expected to imitate the biological's speech patterns. He simply ignored the comlink, but took note of what frequency it was on and began a scan with his on-board sensor equipment for the transmittee.

"...Thet. Thet! Answer me, you dungpile!"

Amusing. He was.

"I'll have your hide, I don't care if you're taking a leak - answer me NOW!"

So shrill. She could damage low-end sensitive auditory equipment with vocal cords that tight.

IG-88 found the source. His quick footsteps had placed him almost at the surface by now, and infrared scans showed three probable biologicals in the distance ahead, though their physical images were obscured by wreckage. He answered the female voice - so reminiscent of one that he'd silenced shortly after his very first awakening.

"You may have his leaking hide."

His pincers crushed the communications link and dropped it to the broken surface of his world.

One was a Gamorrean. The other two targets were a male human and a presumably female human. Threat probability - the Gamorrean easily was the most potentially dangerous, then the human male. They had no heavy armaments, but almost certainly carried identical explosives to those Thet had had.

The Gamorrean, being the least intelligent, was the most likely to be holding said explosives.

IG-88 calculated trajectory, velocity, and wind differentials before finally - after a half second pause - pressing a firing stud and launching a thermite concussive grenade.

The projectile swirled gracefully though the nearly dead air, landing between the Gamorrean's feet and evaporating most of his legs. His torso and thighs blew apart, the former instantly burning and crisping as it ripped apart from bottom to top. The shoulders and arms broke, being shielded from the initial blast, then also burned and flew several meters into the air. The sacks that had been strapped to the portly biological had all flown off, their straps and cords broken or disintegrated. There was really not much of anything left of the creature save its head, which landed twenty feet away and had not yet really realized that it had lost its body.

The Gamorrean target had been roughly ten meters ahead of the two humans, and they had seemingly taken note of the approaching grenade and had dashed off for cover. The male a bit unsuccessfully, it was singed badly on one side and had a piece of metalwork imbedded in the same side's leg. The female was hidden from sight, but IG-88 had seen her duck into a reinforced - albeit fallen into ruin - administrative building before the explosion.

The assassin clomped up to the human male target, delicately and precisely squeezed off three shots from his blaster rifle into the biological's already useless head, and turned and entered the building.

"Entered", in this case, meaning "walked through a door" in the most literal fashion. The thin steel easily gave way, riddled with time and ancient battle wounds, and IG-88 was inside, pushing a hastily-erected desk out of the way with no more trouble than swatting an insect.

It was impressive that the female had found the strength to move the tattered furniture about, and perhaps more so that she thought she could survive if she swung a lamp into IG-88's headcase.

The lamp's light source had long been dim and shattered, and so nothing of value was lost when the droid grabbed it and snapped the post in two.

The woman was decidedly - almost impressively - repulsive to behold, and not just because she was biological.

It was much more becoming to her features to smash the broken top half of the lamp into them.

It was good enough for now, anyway. IG-88 pressed the muzzle of his grenade launcher into her open mouth, set the next grenade to explode after twenty seconds, and did his best to shoot it straight down the thing's throat.

It was probably dead by then, but the body was still warm and it twitched quite violently when he did that.

The droid took a datapad from the corpse's pocketed vest, along with an antiquated starship keycode. Then he went back outside, headed for his safe room.

The remnants of the administration office crumpled to pieces as the second concussion grenade exploded.

[IG-88]

A tall shadow emanated from the - taller - assassin droid as he re-entered the safe room.

HIS safe room. Though, it was certain enough that there no longer were any "safe" places left in the galaxy for him.

He would just have to make do.

Towards those ends, he stomped with unobservable grace towards the weapons rack once more and initiated the browsing of related files from among those he had downloaded just hours earlier from the terminal across the room.

First item - throwing flechettes. The droid easily recognized these, he had had them ever since his very first initialization. Small spiked discs of thin durasteel alloy. They fit handily in a small compartment, nearly concealed on his outer left "thigh".

Second item - another standard Imperial-issue blaster rifle, with extra ammunition clips. The droid snapped these into place around his solid waist.

Third item - ten grenades of varying payloads, in clips of two. Incendentary, flash, concussive, and two high explosive clips. The droid reloaded his grenade launcher with two more explosive rounds and clipped the rest to a bandolier.

Fourth item - spool of razor wire. This, the droid carefully inserted onto a prong set into his left palm. This done, the leading edge was set into the ejector and the lid concealing the entire spool was fastened.

Fifth item - two heavy gauge vibroblades. These were slipped into their sheaths on the back of the bandolier.

Six item - heavy disrupter rifle. It was as large as the grenade launcher, and about as functional. The energy clip showed the "Full Charge" symbol. The droid slung it across his back.

Seventh item - a back armour plate, the droid had neglected to put it on with the other pieces since the only possible danger had been in front of him and he was pressed for time. This piece had the same durasteel middle layer and outer cortosis alloy as well, but it had a strange, almost biological-looking frame of unfamiliar design or use set into it. The droid looked up the relevant file.

Ysalamiri... IG-88 was unfamiliar with the term, but the frame was apparently a supply of nutrients that would sustain a single one of those creatures. The entire point of strapping one on his back was not mentioned.

How annoying.

Still, he moved his armaments out of the way and snapped it into place.

Eighth item - ten small yield laser trip mines. These were slight, but already placed conveniently in a bag - so the droid affixed the bag to his waist.

End of inventory.

IG-88 slung the grenade launcher across his back to join the disrupter, holstered one blaster rifle, took up the other, and walked to the turbolift platform in the center of the room.

It was still functional. His files told him that it led to a similarly protected personal hangar.

And so it did.

An observer, far out in space above Mechis III, would have seen a sleek form in the shape of double needles cruise out of the atmosphere and jump into hyperspace.

But, of course, everyone who had once cared was long gone. And / or long expired.

IG-88 was back in town.