After collecting my speeder and making the required purchases out of prying eyes, made simpler by Dantooine's overall general stretches are basically a whole lot of nothing all around me, I followed the coordinates to the main battlefield where control over the planet was once fought only a couple years ago.
From what I heard, it was a rather big one too, despite Dantooine's relative unimportance. But then again, when it's one of the primary agriworlds the Core worlds relied on to feed their population, and when many others were being targeted by the CIS at the same time in an attempt to starve them out, the Republic couldn't take any chances.
Of course, in this new age of 'peace' the Empire was promising, Dantooine was quickly becoming a barely known world again. It's no wonder the future Rebel Alliance would set up a base here at some point.
That, and I couldn't help but notice the simple beauty of the world as I speed through its grasslands, something I'm sure many sentients would enjoy over Yavin 4's jungles or Hoth's frozen wasteland.
Anyway, it didn't take too long to reach the battlefield, and for the most part after three years of the former Republic and scavengers picking through the remains it was hard to see much evidence of the huge battle that took place here among the low grassy hills and meandering rivers… mostly. It was kinda hard to ignore the random grassy craters dotting the landscape and the remains of the seismic tank sitting in the middle of the whole area, leaning like a big broken skyscraper.
The huge machine was very industrial looking with its brown and irregularly placed metal plating, which was now pockmarked with large holes which I'm sure was due to it exploding all over before it crashed into the ground below. There were huge pieces of debris all around where it landed, which for the most part had been reclaimed by the local fauna, looking like one of those old photos about blasted out tanks left to sit in the wilderness for years, writ large. Honestly, if I didn't know any better I would have thought the whole thing was a crumbling building instead of a vehicle that was once capable of moving under its own power, it was that big.
Which, given its original function as basically a giant mobile mining rig, was fitting.
I was no soldier, so it was hard to tell what was battle damage and what was just the result of scavengers picking over it for anything useful they could sell, whom I could see groups of even from where I was currently parked on a nearby hill overlooking the location. Either way, it was likely a hollowed out shell at this point, so there would be nothing for me there.
After three years, most of the easy salvage would have already been picked up at this point, so with that in mind my best bet for finding anything worthwhile would be going to the places that had harder to reach stuff. Namely, the craters.
The way I figured it, each time that giant mining vehicle slammed its driver into the ground it displaced a lot of earth along with whatever poor clones and droids were unlucky enough to be under it or even near the point of impact. I had no idea the amount of force each hit must have done, but to create decently sized craters into the earth that were still visible today, it must have been a lot.
So, with that in mind, I imagine that a lot of things got buried deep into the ground and most scavengers wouldn't have put in the effort to dig it up since you would have to work harder for less material to turn in. Something I planned to take advantage of.
With a plan in mind, I sped over to the crater the furthest away from the thing that made it, hoping to find more than more easily and ideally avoid close contact from other salvagers. While I didn't expect most to be trouble, I imagine that like the Gold Rush back home people would set up claims, and some of them might seek to infringe on them in a less than friendly manner. Therefore, finding an out of the way place would work to my benefit, along with some tools I bought to help ward anyone off seeking to take what I earned or worse.
Oh, and make sure none of the native wildlife thought I looked like a snack, I couldn't forget that.
I was not a violent person by nature, so I was very thankful that SFO offered me plenty of options for less than lethal means of defending myself for cheap in the form of a DC-15s side arm blasterfor 400 credits and stun baton for measly 15 credits. The former I got for its ability to recharge itself and stun setting, and the latter for having a means to fight anyone off that got too close. I also made sure to buy both holsters to carry them on my sides comfortably, mostly hidden by the longish coat made with low-grade armorweave I also bought for another 150 alongside tough pants, boots, and other durable clothing to change into.
Heh, I had to admit the getup made me feel a little like a classic SW bounty hunter, but obviously I would prefer less dangerous means to make money.
Once I reached the crater I eventually parked the speeder somewhere around the middle of it, thinking it would likely contain the most stuff buried a decent amount underground. I got off it and headed over to the 200 credit hoversled trailer I had attached to the back of my speeder, which was rated to easily carry near a thousand pounds. I figured that would be a good starting point for salvaging, and depending on how much I collected today and the profit margin, I might just upgrade for something better.
For now though it would work, and it doubled as a seat for my new team.
"Alright, let's get to work you guys," I said as I pushed on the noses of the three folded up pit droids, which quickly sprung to lift as I did so.
The pit droids were 450 credits each, making them so far my most expensive purchase at over 1.3k credits all together. However, for all that people complained about them they were cheap, durable, very strong for their relatively short size, and their in-built comm system made it so a group of pit droids could effectively work together quite well compared to individual units. They weren't the best programmed droids in the galaxy, with many people saying they were clumsy at best and dangerously incompetent at worst, but I believed that with a decent guiding hand the risk would be minimal.
"Alright then, Huey, Dewey, and Louie, each of you grab a metal detector and start scanning the ground around us," I instructed the droids as they hopped off the sled and I handed them the devices in question, only about 30 credits each and not dissimilar looking to ones back in home universe. "Don't wander off too far from each other or me, start scanning in a circle going outwards from the speeder, and tell me the second you pick up on something, got it?"
The three droids quickly nodded and chirped in Binary at me before they ran off to quickly get to work scanning the ground, the PUT thankfully translating it, albeit in a slightly strange way.
"(Got it boss!)"
"(Sure boss!)"
"(Whatever you say boss!)"
In order to be better able to tell the difference between the three droids, I had spray painted their heads, 3 credits a can, red, blue, and green respectively in honor of another set of triplets that Disney owned right after I bought them and had them recognize their new names. I for certain wasn't gonna bother remembering the full serial number of any droids I bought, after all.
Having access to buying droids with SFO was a major force multiplier for me in general given the varied skills and abilities every model had, but for now I had limited funds so I had to be smart about what I bought. No huge droid armies to march all over my enemies for me any time soon. However, that didn't mean I couldn't get started on a metal crew for myself, and the triplets weren't even the end of it.
"Gonk (Ready to power)," Sir Gonkington said from the trailer as it walked over to the edge of it… and promptly fell off and onto his face.
"Gonkington, I told you to wait until I lowered the trailer. You are not the most agile model after all," I sighed as I strained to right the heavy droid until he was back on his feet. I gasped a bit at the effort. "And I'm not nearly in enough shape to keep picking you up."
"Gonk (Thank you)," the power droid simply responded as it shuffled back on its feet and stared at me. "Gonk? (Work?)"
"Just stay here and I'll plug you into the speeder," I said as I proceeded to do just that with its charging cable as I attached it to the droid. "I'll let you know if anything else needs power as it comes up."
The mobile fusion reactor with legs, costing only 100 credits, obediently stayed put as I grabbed my own metal detector and got to work scanning for salvage.
Gonkington's model might not have been the best power droid on the market, lacking a lot of features the more advanced and expensive EG model had, but he more than served for what I needed in keeping my now various devices topped off. That, and I always had an affection for the derpy droids. Besides, one should never turn down a basically limitless power supply.
I got to scanning alongside my pits, making sure to go slow and really check over the area, but after about ten minutes or so none of us hit anything.
"Hmm, might be buried deeper than I thought," I muttered to myself as I extended the range on the detector as high as it could go. "Damn, I knew I should have sprung for the slightly more expensive model. Now I gotta hope someone back in town is willing to buy these and get my money back."
One of the downsides of SFO was that it only accepted currency, so I couldn't sell any other objects to it in exchange for cash, including things I had bought from it. It made every purchase one I had to make carefully since there was no refund policy. And while the metal detectors weren't a big purchase, I hated the idea of any waste with my wallet so low.
For now I still had a little more than 5k in my online account, but I knew how quickly that could go if I wasn't careful. I really needed to start making some kind of money before-
"(Found something boss!)" I heard one of my pits called out, making me turn my head to see it was Louie waving at me.
"Great job! Let's see what we got," I told him as I collected the shovels from the trailer, another 3 credits each, and brought them over. "How deep does the detector say?"
"(Four meters!)"
"Ouch, my back hurts just thinking about it," I said before smiling and handing the droids the shovels. "Thankfully you guys don't have to worry about that, so you mind digging it up?"
"(Got it boss!)"
"(Sure boss!)"
"(Whatever you say boss!)"
The pits dropped their detectors, picked up the shovels, and quickly got to work digging a hole, their small but mighty bodies digging at a rather decent pace.
I stepped back, watching and directing them all the while as I took a drink of water from my canteen. Dantooine wasn't terribly hot, but it was easy to feel the heat while standing in the middle of an open field.
I had no idea how long on average it took to dig a deep hole, but the pit droids dug theirs in about half an hour or so, creating a hold deep enough to hold at least two of me. Thankfully I remembered to tell them to dig out a ramp, or else they would have gotten stuck down there. Eventually I heard one of their shovels hit something that wasn't dirt and I walked in to uncover just what it was they uncovered.
It… looked like a leg? A very flattened and beaten up leg, but a leg none the less. It most likely belonged to a B2 battle droid considering it was reported there were tons of them during the battle and looked thicker than the sticks that B1s walked around on.
"Okay, not much, but it's a start," I nodded as I turned to my pits. "Great job you three."
"(Yeah!)"
"(Whoo!)"
"(Awesome!)"
I let the three cheer for a moment before calming them down.
"Okay, good start, but we still have lots of work to do," I said while looking around at our hole. "Detectors might work better now since we've gone so deep, so let's scan things and then pick a direction to dig in. Hopefully we can find more of where this came from and his broken buddies."
The pits quickly traded back in their shovels for detectors and we all got back to work again while I returned topside to overlook things and keep Sir Gonkington company.
For now, it might not seem like much, but it was only the first day and I was sure it would serve as the humble foundation of my business empire in due time.