Prologue

“By the stars! Not again.” A cloud of smoke came out of the engine, towards Klagas’ face, which he skilfully avoided by simply leaning back. He put on his goggles, before shutting down the drill and quench the cable-fire inside the control panel. 
“What’s happening?”, a second voice asked, leaving a landed shuttle, a few meters away from the dig site.
“It’s that horrid dust! Stuff finds even the tiniest nooks to settle in. The engine can’t handle the constant pollution.”
“So at least another hour gone?” A tanned human came into Klagas’ view, his partner Malvian. Both working together in the field of scavenging and occasional “archaeology” jobs. They both seen their fair share of planets, from other dust-balls to lush forests with rather unfriendly lifeforms in it. But few have been as enervating as this one. From the first day, their gear was constantly breaking, not working, or simply giving up, like something or the planet itself was sabotaging them. But it was too late to go back now. The pay from their client was too good and a certain sense of pride kept both going.
“I need to change the energy-module, clean the thing out again and oil everything up.”
Malvian shook his head. “Never again in Territory space, I’m telling you. This part of space is just cursed.”
“But those stiff aristocrats pay well.” Klagas took off his goggles, after the burn subsided, and jumped from the laser-drill to Malvian. Sweat run down the Sabrak’s jagged brow, with its horns crowning the bald head.
“We could finally get that hyper-engine upgrade, you saw back on Nar Shadaa.”
“Yeah…” Malvian looked at the hole, the two of them already broke into the cliff side. Remnants of the bases of statues still protruded from it, marking the spot they and their ‘client’ been looking for.
“With our luck, we gonna be caught up between some Territory war.”
“Nah!” Malvian denied the thought. “Even if, they would never come here. This planet is only desert and maybe some ancient ruins. No resources or anything those puffballs could want. I mean, the place doesn’t even have a name!”
Klagas nodded, looking over to the shuttle, from which an only too familiar silver figure came out of.
“Oh no, here we go again…” Klagas pointed towards the odd protocol droid, who was approaching the two men. Klagas did not know, which kind of unite this one was, though. He was sent by their client, as an overseer of them and their progress. But this unite was different, for some reason. With his triangular head, the improved hydraulics Klagas noticed on its limbs. Also, the way it talked, like nothing Klagas ever witnessed on a protocol droid, or any droid for that matter. Maybe the thing was just in the need for a memory wipe.
The metal man finally reached the two, who were still standing in front of the drill. “Why has the operation stopped?”, the droid asked in his haughty tone.
Klagas spoke up: “The damn drill broke again and now I need to fix it… again.” The emotionless face turned towards the Sabrak, and his red eyes looked at him.
“…Ser.”, he added, something he never thought to do, especially to a droid. But it was better to stay on its good site, to keep the work going.
“How far are we from the chamber.”, the droid returned. Malvian shook up and ran to his data pad. “We’re about 15 meters from the cavity the scanners showed us.”
“Only 15?”
“Well, yeah. Probably get through the next run, when Klag finished the repairs.” The droid simple stood there for a few moments, looking towards the hole, the drill has already worked into the stone. Then, without any words, the droid turned towards the shuttle and went inside again.