Guardians of a Galaxy Far, Far Away:
Ready or Not, Here I come (Can’t Hide from Love) – The Delfonics
NTT reigns.
In their quest for droid supremacy, they continued to chase down MF69to conscript him into their service as a leading officer.
MF69 remained at large. After parting ways with Aggravayne, MF69, Grin, and Steve took off to the outer rim, finally establishing themselves as capable bounty hunters for local law enforcement.
Eager to repay his moral debt, MF69 tracked down fugitives, hoping to undo his years as an assassin, a slaver,and a hired thug to criminal masterminds.
MF69 settled into his new role with confidence, assured that he was doing something good. He gained notoriety in the underworld as a boogieman. Hustlers, smugglers, and con men would double-take whenever an unfamiliar droid wandered into their cantina.
The crew of the Silt Strider managed to stay several steps ahead of NTT through stealth, speed and guile, often completing bounties under an alias.
Aiding the bounty hunters in their quest was the encrypted data file(“The USB of Doom”) that MF69 discovered on the Jade Jattar ship, which contained info on every major player in the criminal underworld, including last known locations of active bounties.
The trio pursued their quarry with relentless precision, often surprising their target and capturing them before anyone knew the hunters had arrived. The light freighter would jump in and out of the system before NTT could get a trace
With the additional cover of the vast, uncharted expanse of the outer rim, the crew of the Silt Strider found a nomadic, if temporary peace.
With the credits rolling in, they installed bacta tanks in the ship,and upgraded their offense with a front gun to be controlled by the pilot.
All was good.
Come and Get These Memories- Martha Reeves & the Vandellas
Their peace was shattered when MF69 received a message on his ship from an old acquaintance: Shaleen, a Twilek the droid met while on a job in a Coruscant night club.
Shaleen made her living working for a company that made restraining bolts, and recently closed a deal with an unknown party.
Shaleen explained in her message that she knew who MF was, and how he made his living. Hoping to repay him for saving her life, Shaleen offered to repair MF69’s corrupted memory banks.
The Twilek explained that she was an expert in droid hardware and data recovery. With some 3rd party data on MF69’s time as an assassin she could reconstruct all of MF69’s memories from before he gained sentience.
Since the bounty USB might contain data on MF69’s exploits, Shaleen might be able to fix gaps in his memory caused by physical damage and corruption through predictive simulation.
Though MF69 was skeptical, Grin convinced him to take the offer, causing the crew to leave the cover of the outer rim for Coruscant. MF69 dared to be hopeful, but was wary that the mega-city’s population might mean more opportunities to get recognized by the wrong people.
The crew arrived at Shaleen’s company, a droid repair facility. Wanting to support his friend, Grin accompanied MF69 to the building, but was made to wait in the lobby, “for health and safety reasons.”
MF69 handed over the USB to Shaleen, and sat down on the operating table. The Twilek left the room.
Gwan- The Suffers
A strange droid claiming to be the technician performing the operation entered the room shortly after.
With a jolt, MF69 felt something reverberate through his system as the technician planted a restraining bolt to his circuit board.
That’s when NTT sprung their trap, shooting Grin in the lobby before he could react. He crumpled to the floor, dying. All seemed lost.
However, MF69’s malfunctioning circuitry had one saving grace: They rendered him immune to restraining bolts and thus NTT could not take control. MF pulled the holdout pistol from the hole in his chest and shot the technician to death.
Shooting his way through the facility, MF managed to fight his way from the back of the building to the lobby, scooping up Grin in the process. The duo ran or limped to the docking bay, sustaining heavy damage and nearly dying as they approached the ramp of the ship.
As the ramp lowered, NTT’s goons closed in, leaving the duo outgunned.
That’s when Steve-the-2-meters-long-womp-rat came barreling out of the Silt Strider, causing enough of a distraction for MF69 to carry Grin into the ship to place him in a bacta tank, narrowly saving his life.
Steve viciously mauled two droids, disabling them, and dodged incoming fire as it disappeared into the streets of Coruscant.
With a metaphorical tear in his eye, MF69 turned on the engine of the ship and piloted the Silt Strider out of Coruscant, dodging fire from multiple ships. He managed to destroy one vessel,though the front gun of the ship was promptly disabled in the dog fight.
MF69 jumped to hyperspace, abandoning Steve in the city.
Nowhere to Run- Martha Reeves & the Vandellas
Now down the USB that gave them an edge in bounty hunting, and being perpetually tracked by NTT through the restraining bolt, MF and Grin abandoned their trade, stuck on the lamb. Still,Grin agreed to stand by MF’s side, and suggested finding a mechanic skilled enough to remove the restraining bolt.
They returned to the relative safety of the outer rim, where they ran into a significant roadblock: NTT issued a large bounty on MF69 through the Hutt Cartel.
The Hutt’s massive influence in the outer rim allowed NTT to mobilize the entire criminal underworld to hunt MF, and the underworld was more than happy to get revenge on the do-gooder.
The bounty specified that MF69 was to be captured “alive”- that is, just the parts containing his personality matrix needed to be intact.
You Can’t Hurry Love- The Supremes
MF69, paranoid that his presence would bring harm to Grin, locked the hapless copilot in an escape pod and jettisoned it, abandoning him on the nearest civilized planet. MF then altered his appearance to be unrecognizable to his associates, and took off running.
Eventually, the droid ran out of credits to buy fuel, so he was forced to siphon the dregs from derelict ships in the outer rim. Each scavenging excursion was a roll of the dice, and after a few throws the Silt Strider’s gauge was on empty.
MF69 ran out of fuel in a ship boneyard on the edge of an asteroid field. Leaving the light freighter adrift in space, MF scoured the wrecks for anything he could use to stay in flight.
He found no fuel in any of the busted freighters. He did, however, find a music player with a mysterious playlist on it (the name “Volume 3” was etched into the casing). Spying a decommissioned transport ship in the center of the boneyard, MF used the grapnel attachment on his rifle to propel towards its cargo hold.
The hold was already picked over by scavengers, carrying mostly empty containers. MF squinted, and spied a rift in the back wall where something had crashed through. Amidst the debris was a barely functional, archaic starfighterwith a battered left wing.
Just then, a ship leaving hyperspace blinked into existence at the edge of the boneyard. Then another.Then another… 12 gunships total zeroed in on the Silt Strider, eager to capture their bounty.
With NTT closing in, MF69 jumped in the junker starfighter and powered up its engines. Aiming for the asteroid field, the droid had a bad feeling that this escape could be his last…
