The Vulture droid stared at the Twi’lek’s motionless body for several seconds. She wasn’t getting back up.

With a motion that some could interpret as a shrug, the Vulture made an about-face and started investigating the domicile a little closer. As far as houses went, it was basic, but remarkably tough. The design was familiar. In fact, it almost looked like-

The Vulture blipped in surprise. The house was a repurposed base of operations. It had once been a bunker designed for rear command to send orders from. The Twi’lek must have renovated it after local forces left.

It was more than a little pleased that it had found such a resourceful worker. Odds were good that she would be able to begin repairs on the droid factory, and probably even give the Vulture a tune-up!

There was a slam of wood on stone as the door was thrown open, another, much smaller Twi’lek sprinting from the house to grab his unconscious elder. Wrapping his arms around her neck and armpit, he began to valiantly try and pull her back into the house. He didn’t stop watching the Vulture for a second.

Something that might have passed as amusement flickered through the Vulture’s cerebral matrix. The Twi’lek boy was afraid of it! If it had intended to mete out property damage, it would have already done so.

However, its work force was retreating into the house, and the Vulture didn’t feel like trying to find another batch of organics to help out. This one had already proven itself useful, although perhaps not intentionally.

Taking two steps forward, partially rusted joints creaking and wheezing as it moved, the Vulture leveled one limb directly at the pair of Twi’leks. The twin ship-to-ship blasters built into the tips ignited, emitting a vicious hum.

The young Twi’lek froze halfway through the door.

The Vulture inwardly considered its options. It lacked any sort of voice synthesizer, and it wasn’t entirely sure that it was capable of wirelessly connecting to any nearby audio devices without assistance. It hadn’t even been five minutes and the Vulture’s plan already had holes in it.

That was fine as far as it was concerned. Any orders the Vulture came up with were guaranteed to have flaws. It definitely hadn’t been designed for complicated thinking, that was for sure. Hopefully there was an active Separatist command post somewhere in the system where it could be reassigned, and then it could finally stop having to think for itself.

The Twi’lek had been inching through the doorway as the Vulture thought, and the wooden door closed with a barely audible click. The sound registered, snapping the Vulture out of its thoughts.

The Vulture stared at the door.

…Now what?

It needed the work force to be compliant for its plan to work, which meant the plan wasn’t working! This was why it didn’t have ideas. Should it wait, or blast the door off, or just try and start building?

But that could be an equally ineffective path! For all it knew, these Twi’lek were the only remaining life forms on the entire planet - and if it left now, they might leave, and it would be next to impossible to find them again.

On the other hand, it could hardly start construction by itself. It lacked any the of the proper limbs required to build a door, let alone an entire forward operations base. It could barely move rubble around.

The Vulture remained perfectly still as it considered its paths, unaware of the people anxiously watching it from the window.

~ ~ ~ ~ ~

Cap’hane glanced down at her son. Zeh’tocu was barely fifteen. Even if they could scrounge up a pair of blasters, they didn’t have anything that could hurt a droid of that size.

What in the world was it doing all the way out here!? There was nothing in the Outer Rim that anyone wanted, and definitely not anything that warranted spending a small fortune on a giant droid.

A part of her was chagrined that Zeh’tocu had been present while she was… unconscious, to put it kindly. She deeply hoped he hadn’t seen her pass out.

She shook it away. Now was not the time to be concerned with this sort of thing!

The droid wasn’t attacking, at least for the time being. It was just… standing there. Menacingly. She had no idea what it was doing. Was it waiting for something? Expecting them to come out? Why didn’t it just announce its purpose and get it over with? What did it want with them!?

Cap’hane looked at her son once more. There was an expression of deep concern on his small face, green-tinted with the pigment of his father, but with the lekku of her grandmother.

Forget effectiveness. She was grabbing a blaster anyway.

Turning from the window, she urgently whispered to her son, “Yell if it moves.”

With that, she headed for her bedroom on the first floor. Hurrying past heirlooms and keepsakes from generations past, she threw the chest at the foot of her bed open and retrieved the blaster within. It was older than she was, and she had no idea if the power cell even had a charge left. Her father apparently used it in the Imperial war, or at least claimed he had. He’d certainly gone on about all the imps he’d-

Her heart skipped a beat. Were there shreds of the Empire left? Were they hunting down former Rebels!?

Fear partially turned to wrath as she stormed back to the window, antique blaster in hand. If her bantha-dung excuse of a father had done anything to risk the life she’d carved out for herself, she was going to dig up his corpse and crap on it.

Zeh’tocu had his eyes glued to the droid when she came back. “It hasn’t moved.”

Cap’hane found her wrath remarkably durable; she hadn’t expected it to last upon seeing the droid again. “Good,” she growled, and headed for the door with the blaster’s safety off.

~ ~ ~ ~ ~

The Vulture was having thoughts about potentially setting up a pre-broken economic semi-socialist community with the livestock in hopes of possibly roping the Twi’lek in and obtaining their assistance that way. It was saved from plan ninety-five by the door being flung open, a rather irate Twi’lek woman close behind. She was holding a blaster.

Several subsystems activated in the Vulture and were promptly muted, cutting off a number of preset defense protocols. Regardless of how she felt about the Vulture’s presence, a blaster wouldn’t do much to its hull, and it really needed a work force. No matter how many bad plans the Vulture came up with (and it knew they were bad), they all required the assistance of someone with hands. The Twi’lek fit that requirement.

Aiming the blaster at the Vulture’s main body, she shouted, “If you’re after my father, he’s dead! We don’t have anything! Leave us alone!”

The Vulture remained perfectly still. Without orders or a plan, it didn’t think it wise to move. Granted, the Twi’lek woman had just given it what might be construed as an order, but without the proper clearance her request wasn’t exactly a high priority.

It suddenly realised it had no method of readily available communication. It was designed for in-space battles and high-orbit confrontation, not planetary conversation. If there was something it could transmit to, that would be another thing entirely, but at the moment it found itself at a loss.

How was it supposed to get her help if she didn’t know that it wanted help!?

The Vulture briefly devoted a small subroutine to perpetual beratement of any and all plans that it came up with in the future. They were clearly not to be trusted.

At the moment, it had a blaster aimed at it and it still hadn’t moved.

The second Twi’lek poked his head out of the door, shouting, “Is it even alive?”

The one holding a blaster yelled back, “Stay inside!”

Several routines were stuck in a logic loop, including a few rather important ones. The Vulture rebooted everything except motor functions and optical sensors and tried to figure out what it was supposed to do.

…Not all language was verbal, was it?

The Vulture finally moved, the first motion it’d made since landing ten minutes ago. Lifting one massive limb, it leaned forward and carefully pushed the barrel of the Twi’lek’s blaster away. Part of it was surprised she hadn’t tried to shoot it. She was being remarkably brave!

The Vulture was greatly pleased to figure that tidbit out. Bravery was often adjacent to recklessness, which tended to accelerate terms and conditions along nicely. It also meant she would be more than capable of defending the FOB-to-be if the Vulture happened to be indisposed for whatever reason. Although… she still wasn’t moving.

Upon closer inspection it realized she was actually frozen, one corner of her mouth twitching with a glazed look in her eyes. It identified it as one of two things; a seizure, which would have been abysmal timing, or some sort of psychological condition.

Either way, she was incapable of conversation or anything approaching it for the time being. Which meant it had another option.

Raising its head, the Vulture eyed the Twi’lek boy watching through the window. He ducked under the windowsill for a moment, only peeking over after a few seconds had passed. The Vulture remained motionless.

An idea hit it like a thermal detonator. Trust! Organics were all about trust. They lived it, breathed it, and probably ate it in some form or another. So all it had to do to conscript them was gain their trust!

With that in mind, it nudged the Twi’lek woman, taking infinite care not to damage her in any way. Upon physical contact she flinched out of the state she’d been in, stumbling backwards. The first thing she did was raise her blaster again, but this time there was doubt in her eyes.

She took another step back, radiating uncertainty through her body language. “What do you want!?”

The Vulture remained perfectly still. She seemed delicate at best and trigger-happy at worst, and it wanted to avoid the worst if at all possible. Only one Twi’lek, a young one at that, would not make a very good work force. Two was obviously far from optimal, but still better.

Reaching out once again, the Vulture slowly pushed the barrel of the woman’s blaster away. She didn’t freeze this time, which was good.

Her forehead had a hard crease in it, confusion scrawled across her face. “...What do you want?”

She wasn’t yelling anymore, the Vulture noted. That was good.