Shaft maintenance droid

Corulag Academy's Science Service utilized a shaft maintenance droid in a turbolift that connected all its levels. It was tasked with following the turbolift, demagnetizing the lift shaft's guide rail as the lift descended. The maintenance droid resembled a small tank and traversed the shaft with six wheels. It had a platform on its back that could be ridden upon. It's head was equipped with one red photoreceptor and a vocabulator with which it spoke to service technicians. It could identify technicians authorized to service it.

When an ally of the Jedi that was chasing the Science Service's Chief Scientist, Frexton, who had kidnapped a Force-sensitive infant named Teela Panjarra and fled into the turbolift, the person saw the shaft maintenance droid performing its duties.

Behind the scenes
The shaft maintenance droid appears in the fourth Episode I Adventures Game Book, Jedi Emergency (1999) by Ryder Windham. Because of the book's nature as a Choose Your Own Adventure story, the reader is presented with three options when he or she encounters the droid and how the reader's character interacts with it can vary. How each option plays out is determined by which character the player chose at the start of the adventure, each has various statistics, and dice rolls. The first option is to ignore the droid and simply jump onto Frexton's lift pod, but if the reader fails this roll the lift will be descending at such a high speed that it would be dangerous to do so. The character then decides to ride the maintenance droid, but the reader may choose this initially as well. The player's next roll determines if the droid notices the player land upon it. If this roll fails then the droid stops and asks why the character is in the shaft. The character explains that he or she is trying to save a child in the lift below and the droid may or may not believe this. If it does, it races after the lift. If it does not, it suspects that the character is trying to sabotage the lift and it ascends the shaft to bring its rider to a security droid. In response to this, the character leaps from its platform to take the third option, sliding down the lift's guidance rail. If the reader's next roll succeeds, the character is able to slide down faster than the lift to land atop it. That roll's failure signifies that the character's sleeve is caught upon a piece of metal. The maintenance droid continues descending while the character is stranded, forcing the character to rip the sleeve to avoid being hit by the droid. This is the final dice roll of the sequence and if the reader fails it then the character cannot pull the sleeve free and the droid continues to close in. This continues in a loop until the reader succeeds.

Appearances

 * Episode I Adventures Game Book 4: Jedi Emergency