Leaning its torso forward, and rotating the Plastex head dome counter-clockwise to focus the radar eye on the mechanic’s contorted face, R2-D7 hums a contented tone of supportive agreement.

“But that’s not why being out here in this Chaos is giving me nightmares,” continues Mix, Maintenance Crew Chief for Rho Squadron, speaking to the droid, “It’s those Grysk.”

The Crew Chief takes a deep breath, twisting a hydrospanner to expose the wiring beneath a panel on the keel side of the chassis. “Yep, that’s the spot, reach right in here, at this junction, D7. Spec was great, but we need an extra level of reliability guarantee out here in the Unknown.”

The droid complies, pressing forward, extending the third tread for extra balance as it leans, mid-section angling to reach with the soldering tool at the spot - a blip of arcing blue light and the job is done.

“Keep up that level of work and you’ll make Sub-Lieutenant any day now,” Mix responds with a genuine and rare slim smile while holding the hyperdrive navigation computer positive wire firmly to the circuit junction.

“It’s like this,” continues the surly mechanic, “see, D7, neither you nor me has the same natural random place in this galaxy allowed to other sentients. Natural genetics mingling and combining in whatever outcome - better or worse - that might be. Nope. We were both denied that. Pass me the hex clamps, and remember you don’t know I have them.”

R2-D7 retracts the third tread, spins the head dome 180 degrees and wheels the two paces to Mix’s personal starship toolkit and returns with the secretive item, extending his gripper towards the mechanic's hands and dropping the device into his palm.

“I have known enough droids like you in this career to recognize your own version of sentience, but you were built. I was built. You were created to a specification. I was created to a specification. You were made for a hyper specific role. I was made for a hyper specific role,” continues the Mechanic, maintaining a whispered tone through this set of words while rhythmically tapping against the hull plating with the hex clamps to distort any potential eavesdropping devices’ recordings.

With attentiveness to the moment, R2-D7 leans forward and closer again - absorbing this rare admission from the intensely secretive mechanic.

“That was a terror I could escape - at great odds, risk, and loss, but I could and did. It took surviving prison riots and years now of evading the Offshoot Inter-System Force, but I’m here. It could be done. You avoided full system wipes with your own microscopic adjustments, I did something not that different. But what I know of those Grysk, neither of us could escape their prying gaze.”

The sadness of the low, long tone that emits from R2-D7’s loudspeaker dies against the Rhodium plating.

“You said it right there, my friend,” replies Mix, now checking the seating of a subroutine processor with his left hand. “Why else would this colony be gone so fast? Fully stocked and well garrisoned, equipped with the best the Empire could muster. Out here in a region of the galaxy so extreme we’re making micro jumps? It would have been like they didn’t exist - yet they were found and eliminated. No other explanation. BUT WHY were they eliminated?”

Another heavy breath in and out.

“I don’t need the rumors from Chaz over at Cantina Three to put this together, and neither do you,” adds Mix, wheeling his mechanic’s elevating floor dolly out enough for him to extend the hex wrench towards the droid at arm’s length, gesturing with his words, “Yeah I know that tilt. You get it. You’ve seen the full data in the reports from command. Navigators.”

“Bap-bi-beep-boop,” confirms the droid.

“Exactly. The colony pulled on the wrong thread and that tug was felt by those spiders on their web,” Mix declares emphatically, “Thrawn had many eyes, so it is said, and at least a few of them were always watching these parts. Chiss and their ears for gossip - and their parties man, D7, you missed out on that trip. Noses so high in the air they don’t notice who is at the buffet if you keep your posture right and your hair looks clean.”

The droid’s disbelief is palpable. All the engine grease out of that hair? “Zweeeee-whooooooo,” extends the minor third step down in tones from the droid over three long ticks across Mix’s watch.

“Go whine about it to the droid shop on sub level four, but spare me the melodrama,” retorts Mix. R2-D7 waddles side to side, laughing in sputters and blips, to have caught Mix in irony and tossed it back to him - and irritated the mechanic for a bonus in the process.

The droid wheels a semicircle out, reverses a pace, extends his third tread again and wheels off at maximum Astromech speed across Rho’s assigned bay on the Warrior. Reaching the port side edge of the Bay’s magnetic field, in a corner shadowed from the overhead fluorescents by a stack of long emptied steel crates, R2-D7 enables his arc welder and scratches his second vertical line into the wall. Mix - Seventy three; Nix - Two.

Crew Chief Mix Amcehnic settles back onto the floor dolly and pushes himself beneath the ship, raising himself into position again, and restores the keel side chassis panel with a zip of a servodriver. Rolling back out, he lowers the lift, collects the tools to his left and right, stands then and secures each one carefully into the form fit spot in the kit box. The box closes with a button press, and a confirming gasp of the hermetic seal completing. Mix looks to the right of the work station at the welding goggles - his reflection looking back from the lenses.

He switches off the overhead lights from the station’s control panel.

The chief mechanic then paces the length of the bay to stand at the droid’s waiting side for this end of workshift ritual, and settles the goggles over his eyes - dimming the external view enough for the Arkanian Offshoot to manage.

The starfield showing past the hangar bay is vivid in these Unknown regions. Anomalies distort the red and blue shifts of different formations, passing forcefully enough to be noted by the naked eye. A glint of purple over that golden nebula in the lower left quadrant of this field of view. A moment of orange from that blue cloud in the upper right.

“Do you think they’ll ever allow me a modified pilot helmet and a chance at a seat again, Nix?” inquires the Mechanic to the Droid, with forlorn and sudden honesty.

The droid ponders, emitting the click and whirl of hydraulic shifters and activator sockets.