Chapter 24 – Droids

The next morning, Layan was working on the repair of 6 probe droids he found laying on Ossus. He always liked to repair, assemble or disassemble droids so he had vast experience with droids of all types.

It didn't take long to repair all of them as he had bought an exceedingly large amount of spare parts to build his future droid prototype based on Proxy. What took longer was to improve their performances, these droids had to be set to follow a predetermined path, not like the Viper probe droids Layan had to worry about in his past life.

He started to work on it even before the Ysannas tribesmen were up as he had problems sleeping, and when he finished, they started to head toward Ood to undergo training.

Layan said goodbye to Lyn and activated the probe droids, it was not as efficient as the actual droid probes but with his Mechu-Deru ability and replacing the processor with something more modern, these droids made a jump of several generations.

Four of the six droids started to explore Ossus surface. Their purpose was to find anything worthy of interest: electric signals, ships, Jedi relics (books, lightsaber…), droids and raw materials.

After this, the Phoenix raised through the electrical storms of the atmosphere and headed toward Nerit, one of the two moons of Ossus. When he landed, he saw that the moon was in the same desolate as the planet. The two probe droids left were dispatched with the same goals except for a small addition, they have to repertory every tree they see during their exploration.

After a small trip in hyperspace, the Phoenix appeared in the orbit of Lianna a world near Ossus and located on the Perlemian trade route. It was also a place full of nostalgia for Layan as it was the first world he visited after meeting Shaak Ti.

Lianna was the home of several big droids manufacturer companies, a large second-hand market existed on this world.

Under the control of Valles Santhe, a member of House Santhe, a powerful family, the planet remained independent and powerful economically. Lianna helped the Republic during the Clone Wars with their industry, which had for consequence the Battle of Lianna as the Separatist wanted to eliminate one of the Republic's suppliers. The consequences were dire for Lianna's urban area.

This time, he didn't have to hide from the stormtroopers, so he was more relaxed while heading for the second-hand market.

It was another advantage of Ossus; it was located on one of the main Hyperroute of the galaxy and wouldn't have problems so supply themselves for the time being as they weren't independent. But it could also become a disadvantage if they were discovered as it would be easy for their foes to come.

At the market, he headed for the section that interested him, the droids, the droids he was searching for were often sold on this type of market as they were often used during constructions by a few individuals to reduce the cost, but after the constructions finished, it has no use left to them.

There is also the pirates or pillager who often come here to sell them by huge quantities.

Layan came to buy a few types of droids and seeds to help during Ossus reconstruction, and this place was the perfect place to buy them.

"I want maintenance, load lifter and environmental in big quantity. What do you have in stock?"

The man he addressed to raise an eyebrow but answered him.

"No problem for the environmental droids and the maintenance droids but I have only a few load lifters and heavy labor droids."

Layan was a bit skeptical as he would have to roam around the market or maybe on other planets to find what he wanted but was in a hurry. He has 3 years to prepare his plan, but he had a lot of things to take care of like Lyn training would occupy most of his time.

"Few? How many?"

"A bit more than twenty."

"It will be enough but what type of droids are we talking about and in what quantities?"

"100 Mark II Z3-NO landscaping droid, 23 CLL-M2 ordnance lifter, 25 G2 repair droids, and 100 DUM-series pit droids."

"DUM-series pit droid? I don't want these shits; I'll only take the G2 droids."

The man seems pretty desperate to sell these droids, they were good but were lacking integrated tools to operate.

"I only have a few G2, but I can make you a good offer for numerous DUM-series pit droid and even offer you all the tools necessary."

Layan was hesitating, he didn't need that much maintenance droids for the time being, but if his future plan to recreate the HK-series droids succeed, then they could be useful for the future and would cost almost nothing as the seller wanted to get rid of it.

After harsh negotiations and renouncing to the G2 droids, the deal was made but Layan was once again credit-less, but he still had to buy the seeds.

He wasn't worried as he had knowledge from the future and knew where wealthy pirates are based or a few wanted peoples hiding even here on Lianna.

R2-T3 landed the ship at the warehouse of the seller and the seller employees loaded all the droids inside the Phoenix, the main hold was filled with droids, absolutely no space was left.

Boarding the ship, he flew to a smaller town where he knew a criminal wanted for 100,000 credits is hiding. Not anyone can be like Cad Bane and have a bounty of 500,000 credits on his head.

Talking about Bane, Layan had a few ideas to use the skill of the Duros man. He was the best bounty hunter around, not the best, but the best with no grudges against Jedis or Force-user. Jango Fett will die soon, Boba is a kid and both of them have grudges against Jedis, as for Aura Sing, she said once that she wanted to bathe in Jedi's blood.

Layan didn't use his lightsaber, only a blaster and the force to improve his physical abilities and reflexes and captured the wanted man. He hands him over to the local forces and got 100,000 credits.

Then, he bought several crates worth of seeds and put them inside the smallest hold of the ship. Finally, he got everything he was searching for and was ready to head back, but as he was ready to depart, a vision came to his mind.

He saw a woman, a poor woman with sadness and despair written across her face. She was punishing herself in living in misery. The place changed, and he saw a proud woman, a Jedi raising her daughter with pride as she saw the abilities of her daughter. The place changed again, this time he saw the same woman facing her daughter who fell to the dark side and was looking at her with despise and mockery. The place changed again; he saw the woman again looking at the dead body of her daughter and under her anger used her lightsaber to decapitate a man looking at her with hidden mockery, after this her anger was taken over by despair.

Through the force, a name came to his mind and all the pieces came together.

"Vima-Da-Booda."

She was the mother of Neema, the woman Layan told the story of to Ood just yesterday. Not only did her name come to his mind, he knew she was here, living on Lianna.

"Ood was right, it seems like the force wants to help me. She is the perfect candidate and the descendant of Ood's friend, he will accept and nurse her back to health with all his efforts."

Layan was a distrustful man usually, but he knew Vima's story and respected her ancestors, and Vima too. In her time as a Jedi, before the downfall of her daughter took place, she was a prestigious, powerful and wise Jedi. He thought her to be dead, to have committed suicide somewhere after losing her daughter, but the force showed him that she was still living and may become one of the helpers he was searching for.

The ship took off the ground, but the destination wasn't Ossus. He was searching for Vima-Da-Boda. He headed for Lianna City, the capital like anywhere slums existed and from the visions, she should be somewhere in it. He knew that she cut her link to the force, so it would be more complicated to locate her, but he was motivated to do so.

The ship landed and Layan activated the MagnaGuards and kept them inside to protect if someone was trying to steal the ship. Layan used his holocomm but Lyn didn't answer, maybe still training. He wanted to warn that he would be late as he had something to do. To not worry her, he let her a message.