User:Menkooro/C-3PO

Re-encountering Tig Fromm
"Oh what a perilous chain of events! We're lost in a game of chance to a new master who turns out to be a smuggler, then we're tossed overboard with the stolen goods whilst he gets himself arrested."

- C-3PO, regarding himself and R2-D2

C-3PO and R2-D2's rapid transitions between masters continued, as the two were lost in a game of chance to the smuggler Zevel Hortine, who jettisoned them from his ship along with a large amount of contraband while being arrested above the planet Ingo. Landing in the planet's Vaj Desert, the droids began trekking across the sands before being spotted by two speeder jockeys, Thall Joben and Jord Dusat. Having been in search of an R2-unit, the two declared themselves the new masters of the droid duo and welcomed them into Joben's speeder. While traveling to their auto-shop, the jockeys crossed into the desert's restricted zone and were pursued by seeker probe droids; the chase saw C-3PO fall from Joben's speeder and land in the desert's sands, where he was accosted by a large droid tank. Throwing a rock at it, the protocol droid was surprised to see it explode. Unbeknownst to him, the Fromm Tower Droid had actually been destroyed by Kea Moll, a young resistance fighter from Annoo who had made her way to Ingo.

With the seekers successfully evaded, the jockeys brought the droids back to their shop. C-3PO and R2-D2 helped fix up Joben and Dusat's speeders and were shown the White Witch, a heavily-modified speeder that the jockeys intended to enter into an upcoming race with R2-D2 flying in its droid socket. Joben then left the shop for the night and brought the droids with him, but noticed pursuit by an unknown party and hid his speeder accordingly. With the pursuers dodged, the trio returned to the shop, only to find that Dusat had been kidnapped. Following the arrival of Kea Moll, who had been seeking a mechanic, R2-D2's sensors detected movement outside. Investigating, Joben discovered that his speeder had been sabotaged, and soon found himself surrounded by hostile droids. C-3PO, R2-D2, and Moll took the White Witch outside and saved Joben, before tracking the droids to a base belonging to Tig Fromm, the Anoo-Dat gangster that C-3PO and R2-D2 had previously encountered while in the service of Lonn Idd.

After R2-D2 infiltrated the base, a Fromm Tower Droid opened the complex's doors in an effort to locate the intruder. It was swiftly decapitated by the White Witch, which zoomed into the open doors and made its way through a cave system after locating Dusat on a map of the base. After coming to a locked door, Joben cut his way through with a lightsaber that a customer had previously left him, before taking R2-D2 in the White Witch through the base's tube system to rescue Dusat. Remaining at the computer that displayed the map, C-3PO and Moll monitored Joben's progress and redirected tube traffic out of his way. Their efforts were nearly thwarted by a patrol droid and a maintenance droid, but C-3PO tricked the two into inadvertantly destroying each other. The protocol droid's cunning continued as he directed all patrol droids away from the Witch over a loudspeaker, and convinced two more of the units that he was their ally and had captured Moll.

After rescuing Dusat, Joben and R2-D2 recovered C-3PO and Moll, and piloted the speeder to the base's exit, only to find several droid cruisers waiting outside and firing at them. C-3PO located a computer and overrode orders from Tig Fromm that had deactivated several tower droids; the reactivated tanks began battling the cruisers, allowing the White Witch to escape in the midst of the confusion. Joben destroyed several seeker probes that attempted to follow it, before taking the speeder was to Moll's ship, the Sand Sloth, where Moll, the droids, and their masters prepared to take the Witch to the Boonta Speeder Race. Aboard the ship, C-3PO and R2-D2 held a discussion regarding speeder racing before the ship jumped to the Annoo system. Following the jump, the droids made their way to the ship's hull to enact repairs. C-3PO and the ship's hyperdrive began to float away, but R2-D2 was able to wheel the protocol droid back towards the ship via a rope that C-3PO had attached himself to. C-3PO's servomotors seized up when R2-D2 attempted to keep him stuck to the hull, locking his torso in a position perpendicular to his legs. Although he was able to right himself, the crew of the Sand Sloth needed a new hyperdrive, and traveled to Annoo to find one.

Following a scuffle with another droid at Annoo customs, C-3PO and R2-D2 spotted two members of the Fromm Gang and began to cause a scene, offering a distraction that allowed their human companions to escape. Joben, Dusat, and Moll took the droids to the home of Kea's mother Demma, where C-3PO and R2-D2 performed various chores while their masters slept. After a Sand sloth knocked him into a wall, C-3PO unintentionally activated a secret door leading to a rebel base of the Annoo Resistance. When the droids went to wake Joben up and inform him of their discovery, they found an assassin droid spraying the jockey with gas. A brief skirmish ensued that concluded with Moll arriving and shooting the assassin; her mother promptly arrived home and informed her guests that Sise Fromm, the leader of the Fromm gang, was trying to kill Joben and Dusat for having discovered his secret base on Ingo. In that base, the Fromm gang was developing a secret and deadly weapons satellite called the Trigon One. When the humans returned to their slumber, C-3PO prepared himself for an eventual confrontation with the Fromms by practicing hand-to-hand combat, but found the endeavor taxing when his servomotors seized up again.

To take the Trigon
"Freedom is everybody's fight!"

- C-3PO's battle cry

In the morning, Dusat and Moll took the White Witch to a ship that belonged to the Fromm gang, hoping to ride it back to Ingo and sabotage the Trigon One. When Joben, still in recovery from the gas, woke up later, he took the droids and followed his friends, finding them held captive by a pair of Annoo-Dat thugs at one of the gang's freighters. The gangsters were knocked unconscious in an ensuing confrontation, and Joben and Moll hid themselves in two cargo containers, giving C-3PO a thermal detonator to hold still until they reached Ingo. The droids and Dusat posed as laborers when more gang members passed by, and Dusat then left the scene, intending to remain on Annoo and protect Demma. C-3PO and R2-D2 were soon after witnesses to a conversation between Sise and Tig Fromm regarding their plans for the Trigon One. Under their guise as laborers, they boarded the freighter and were accosted by two other droids during the journey to Ingo. A chance passage through a meteor shower saved them, but also caused them to lose track of the cargo container that Joben and Moll were hiding in.

At the Fromm gang's base on Ingo, C-3PO saved the life of the gang's head of security, Vlix Oncard, by pushing him out of the way of falling debris. After quickly identifying the container that held his companions, C-3PO asked the grateful security chief to take it to the hangar that held the Trigon One. Oncard agreed, and the droids began making their own way to the hangar, dropping Oncard's name in order to avoid trouble with rowdy gangsters that they passed. Two of the gangsters, however, unintentionally activated the thermal detonator. With only ten minutes until its detonation, the droids hurried to the hangar and rendezvoused with their companions, who, with R2-D2's help, fended off attacking guard droids and boarded the Trigon One. After the thermal detonator destroyed the scaffolding holding the satellite in place, the team took the satellite into atmosphere, where R2-D2 destroyed several attacking droid fighters.

After taking the Trigon One back to Ingo, R2-D2 and Joben hid and sabotaged it, ensuring that any subsequent activation of its drives would send it on a collision course with the Fromm gang's stronghold on Annoo. While they were away, C-3PO was modifying a subspace transceiver in Joben's auto-shop when he unintentionally tuned in to the frequency used by the Fromm gang. Witnessing a conversation between Sise and Tig Fromm, he and Moll learned that Oncard had brought a group of Fromm gangsters to the shop. A swift arrival by Joben and R2-D2 in a speeder saved them, but a consequent speeder chase through a nearby city concluded with the Fromm gang trapping them in a warehouse. The four were taken prisoner and brought to the Fromm gang's Annoo strongold, where Joben informed Sise Fromm that he had taken the Trigon One to Ingo. They were then locked in a cell with Dusat, who had been previously taken prisoner along with Demma. R2-D2 hatched an escape plan, and C-3PO, preying on their guard's avarice, loudly claimed that his counterpart's dome was filled with jewels. Investigating, the guard was covered with foam by R2-D2, who then used his shock arm to zap Joben's binders. Joben freed his four companions and took Moll to rescue Demma, while Dusat and the droids made their to a hangar and commandeered a ship. After discovering that the Trigon One was inbound, R2-D2 informed Dusat and C-3PO of the sabotage, and consequently took a cargo sled with C-3PO to aid Joben and Moll, knocking over several patrol droids in the process. The droids activated an evacuation alarm and brought Joben, Moll, and Demma back to the ship, which Dusat had hotwired. However, he needed C-3PO's servomotors to guide the stolen ship. Connecting himself to the ship's navigation controls, C-3PO guided the ship away from the exploding base.

With the Trigon One destroyed and the Fromm gang finished, Joben and Dusat could finally focus on the upcoming speeder race. En route to Boonta, C-3PO and R2-D2 were on the Sand Sloth hull enacting repairs to the White Witch power couplings when another starship appeared and began firing at them. R2-D2 quickly activated the hyperdrive via external controls, and the droids rode through hyperspace on the hull. After arriving at Boonta, an engine damaged in the firefight caused the Sand Sloth to crash into a scrap yard. An old security droid named Proto One appeared and, after befriending R2-D2, offered to fix the ship. Moll agreed, and along with Joben and the droids, brought Dusat to a local hospital, as he had injured an arm during the firefight. The White Witch had been damaged in the crash, and when R2-D2 suggested that Proto One fix it, a jealous C-3PO enlisted the help of a droid named BL-17 instead. BL-17 offered the used of a garage that he claimed was owned by his master, and Moll accepted the offer, unaware that BL-17 was actually working for Boba Fett. Fett, now a bounty hunter, had been hired by Sise Fromm, who wanted revenge on the group that had ruined his gang.

While R2-D2 and Moll were fixing the Witch, C-3PO, unaware of BL-17's duplicity, became fast friends with the droid. BL-17 suggested that they leave the garage to search for Joben, and took the opportunity to lock the door and remotely trigger a gas leak in the garage's welding tanks. When he and C-3PO returned to find the door open and R2-D2 guarding the Witch, C-3PO blamed his old friend for any trouble that might have happened and agreed to BL-17's suggestion to move the speeder to the safety of a nearby processing plant. At the plant, C-3PO and BL-17 ran into Proto One, who had a long-standing rivalry with BL-17. A fight ensued, causing C-3PO to realize his mistake and to regret opening a rift between himself and R2-D2. As if on cue, the astromech droid arrived, and C-3PO took advantage of the distraction by body-checking BL-17 into a pile of rubble which then collapsed on him. Joben and Moll arrived, but when Fett appeared and began shooting at the group, Joben and R2-D2 fled in the Witch to participate in the imminent Boonta Race. Proto One then warned C-3PO and Moll of a thermal detonator that the Fromms had placed inside the Witch, set to detonate after ten laps of the race were completed.

Helpless to intervene, C-3PO and Moll arrived at the racetrack and watched as Joben and R2-D2 participated in the race, dodging Fett's speeder in the process. When the thermal detonator came loose and landed on Fett's vehicle, Joben was able to win the race. While celebrating, he and Dusat were approached by Zebulon Dak, the owner of a powerful speeder corporation, who offered them both jobs. The jockeys eagerly accepted, but their mirth was interrupted by the arrival of Sise Fromm, Tig Fromm, and Vlix Oncard, who were fuming at having once again been foiled. Proto One arrived as well, however, and arrested them, but Fett was unimpressed by their meddling in his work after having hired him, and captured them in order to deliver them to Jabba the Hutt. C-3PO and R2-D2 joined their masters and Moll aboard the Sand Sloth, where they overheard a conversation between the humans: Dak would not allow C-3PO and R2-D2 to accompany the jockeys unless they were reprogrammed. Having grown attached to the droids' personalities, Joben and Dusat decided not to take the jobs. C-3PO and R2-D2 then fled the ship in an escape pod, hoping that their masters would now be free to pursue their dreams.