A Bald Move

05.001 - Lobot

The Baron certainly knows how to pick his acquaintances.

As soon as the Empire descended upon our mining colony I knew Lando’s rebel friends were the catalyst.
The Imperial garrison secreted themselves into the fabric of the city in no time, and to the casual observer there was nothing amiss. Still, we continued to carry out our duties with more trepidation than before.

Lando was on the cusp of discovering the largest Tibanna plume in the rig’s history, and his first priority was to the workers and families of his facility. When Lord Vader revealed his intentions he had no time to brood, although I saw his demeanor change over night. He had no wish to betray his friend.

This was my first meeting with Lord Vader, and for some reason he seemed to tolerate me more readily than any of the organics in the city, miners or Imperials.
Vader instructed me to divulge any information I had regarding the Baron, the city and, in particular, the carbon-freezing chamber. Curiously, he was most interested in any schematics I could pull up regarding the surrounding ventilation shafts and conduits to the chamber, and demanded the overwrite codes for all doors and seals to these tunnels.

With his mining operation at stake, Lando tried his best to appease the Dark Lord in every way possible, but for the first time I saw conflict and hesitation in his face. The final straw that broke the eopie’s back was the arrival of Boba Fett. It was then that Lando implanted the back up codes in my system, telling me that I was to arrange a counter attack against the Imperials upon his signal. A futile effort I suggested, but it heartened me to see the old spark back in my friend.

When Vader mentioned the change in Lando’s behavior, I dismissed it, blaming his attitude on the imminent Tibanna strike. I got the impression that Vader was attempting to probe my mind, but my augmentation encrypted my thoughts so rapidly that he could only have detected gibberish. Actually, I believe Vader held a fascination for my cybernetic enhancements that might have been problematic, had Lando’s associates not arrived and diverted his attention.

Once the Imperial plan was in motion I had to ensure that everything remained calm. When I saw the protocol droid emerge from the Falcon’s underbelly I realized this could spell trouble. It is easy to pull the wool over a wookiee’s eyes, just pump meat smells into the air vents and his brain would not be able to focus on anything else, but the droid could spot something out of the ordinary and alert the others. I had set a small sabacc table up in the Nor-West storage room and invited the off duty troopers to relax there. One never knows when an indebted trooper can come in useful. I rushed there and spun a fabrication regarding a rogue protocol droid who was wandering the corridors of Cloud City attacking anything that moves. I then used a small hand modulator to emulate the squeal of an agitated astromech droid, knowing full well that any protocol droid would have to investigate the noise. The troopers did the rest.

After hauling the droid’s parts down to the Ugnaughts I settled in to my port station, recharging, ready to face the ensuing events.

Things were about to change; I just hoped that Calrissian was worth the credits it took to bring him here.