Traveling Ord Mantel via its network of armored hovertrains wasn't so bad, all things considered, but obviously I would still prefer it if I could just fly my ship. As it was, while I had nothing against most public transportation, it was hard not to feel a bit nervous as I rode inside the passenger car right in front of the cargo car where my speeder and crate of illegal goods were being stored.
The sooner I reached my destination and completed the deal, the better.
After Cid had given me the location for the exchange, I quickly made my way to the nearest train station, bought a ticket, and loaded up my stuff. The hovertrain, naturally, moved very fast, quickly leaving Ord Mantell City and making for Worlport in less than an hour, and while I didn't leave the train when it was stopped in the large central station there, it was hard not to see just how big and sprawling the coastal city was in general. Round domes, elaborate facades, and obelisks covered the chaotic sprawl, and I also knew for a fact from my HoloNet research it had a great many districts and things to cater its large and very diverse population, including three gambling districts surrounding its main spaceport. Normally it would be an awesome place to visit and look around in… if it wasn't for the strong Imperial presence around.
Even now, just sitting in the station, it was hard not to miss the white-armored garrison of troopers and gray-suited officers working alongside local security forces.
Ord Mantell City might not have been big and impressive as Worlport, but at least it wasn't nearly as much in the Empire's field of vision.
Anyway, after a relatively short stopover at the planet's capital the train got moving again, heading north, through its industrial district and soon into the Scraplands itself. Neither of these locations are nearly as nice looking as nearby Worlport, with the industrial district alone housing various factories and other manufacturing facilities that spewed acrid smoke into the sky that was only kept from the nearby city via some large atmospheric systems that kept the pollution at bay. And it only got worse from there as the train made it way through the area and made its way to the border of the Scrapland.
Even from a distance it was hard not to notice the massive junkyard spanning the horizon as the train got closer and closer, and given what it was inside it made sense why the train was so heavily armored and had its own environmental systems. That is because the whole region was a freaking bio and industrial hazard.
The whole thing was the result of thousands of years of manufactured waste and dumping ever since the first colonists came to the planet, making it one of the worst, if not the worst, dumping ground in the whole former Galactic Republic now Empire. Strip mining operations, shipyards, and salvage pits littered the landscape, with literal tons and tons of destroyed starfighters, starships, droids, and other mechanical remains left there to be recycled or broken down in acid lakes that dotted the location, even making fossil fuels from the stuff to provide cheap power across planet. Meanwhile, between the smoke being forcibly blown away from Worlport's industrial district in this direction and the thousands of countless kinds of fires burning eternally amidst the trash, breath or rebreather masks were a necessity just to survive in the area or else you'd be coughing up blood or worse after a few lungfulls.
It went without saying that I was glad I had bought my helmet earlier, and the air supply currently plugged into it via a canister placed in my backpack. Its normal filters could handle all the pollution for a short time on its own, but I wasn't taking any chances and it wasn't expensive at all. Even after all that, after this deal was over I was certainly gonna buy a medical droid to check me over to make sure I didn't contract anything just standing around in this place for a short time.
"Approaching Yalawua Station. Approaching Yalawua Station," the train automatically announced over its PA system.
Still, as horrible as this place was, life found a way… Granted, it was only the hardiest and most desperate kind of life with an on average very low mortality rate, but still life. Scavengers, poor, desperate, criminal, and just plain stupid and crazy would brave the Scaplands beyond the official facilities to dig through the trash for anything useful to sell or use, with unofficial settlements known as squats constantly popping up across the region, before most breaking up as death toll got too high for them. It was a common occurrence that most that set out in the Scaplands hoping to dig up something valuable never returned.
Yalawua was one of the few successful and even long-standing squats, likely partly due to the fact it rested on the border of the region rather than directly inside, being around for centuries if not longer. This made it an actual stop on the hovertain line, but I wasn't gonna be stopping here so it didn't really-
"Attention passengers, there is to be a random Imperial security sweep of the train at the upcoming stop. Please have your chain codes or other forms of ID ready to be presented. Attention passengers, there is to be a random Imperial security sweep of the train-" the PA started repeating, but I was already up and fast walking towards the cargo car at the news.
"Shit, shit, shit, shit, shit, shit, shit!" I muttered to myself as I quickly exited the passenger car through the airlock between them and quickly went for my stuff.
The last thing I needed was the Empire to find me without any form of legal ID, let alone the illegal weapons I had on me, so I would need to get off at the next stop before any one of them spotted me and started asking pointed questions. Sadly, this meant I would have to get off well before my intended stopping point and would unlikely to be able to use the train again to reach deeper into the Scrapland if the Empire was sniffing around.
Why the hell was the Empire so concerned about guarding a toxic garbage dump anyway?! Didn't they have better things to do like oppressing the masses or committing genocide?!
Doesn't matter, what matters is that I needed to get off at the upcoming stop and work from there if I wanted to make it to the exchange before the day was over or else I was fucked in a whole different kind of way.
I waited on my speeder as the PA announced we were pulling into the station and the train started to slow down in a way that I barely felt it. The crate of weapons were strapped onto the back of it behind my seat, and I was ready to bolt the second the cargo car doors opened if need be.
"We have arrived at Yalawua Station. Please, all passengers wait for the doors to open and exit in an orderly manner," the train announced and I nearly gunned it out of the train the second the cargo car's doors opened, but I restrained myself and instead merely scooted out of it. As I did, I gave the station a look around and saw that while not nearly as action as the other stations the train stopped at, there was still a surprising amount of activity with a number of beings getting on and off the train, the former usually carrying something or other in a container on their person. Heck, there were a number of people filing into the cargo car as I left it, carrying a number of spare parts and other pieces of machinery with them.
Of course, what really got my attention was the squad of troopers and station security further down the platform who were already boarding it, checking its passengers IDs and carrying what looked like scanning equipment. Either way, I made sure to turn away from them and make my way out of the area.
I was a little nervous at first that someone would see me slowly hurrying away and make note of it, but for the most part it seemed like people were busy with their own things or just straight up didn't care. And since I wasn't doing anything overly blatant to disrupt the peace or even near them, it didn't grab the clone troopers' attention either. So, thanks to people's natural tendency not to care about something so long as it wasn't affecting them at all, I was able to make my way out of the station in short order.
And beyond it, not too far away, was a small amount of metal converted into what looked like equal parts town and a fortress.
Yalawua was, supposedly, originally established by a colony of jawas a long time ago that left their home planet of Tatooine after losing their original home to tuskens. They came to Ord Mantell, saw the Scaplands, and set up shop doing what they were best known for, scavenging the old remains of the past for anything worth selling to others. Since then they had apparently prospered quite well, all things considered and despite living on the edge of the Scrapeland, and it showed since they were absolutely everywhere.
The whole settlement could be best described as hive-like, likely made from the remains of a really big and old starship, converted into living space for the small beings, covered in ladders, ziplines, makeshift elevators, houses made of scrap, various machines and devices I couldn't even guess the use of, defensive emplacements, and more built up on what could generously called a huge wrecked piece of scrap. And the jawas were crawling all over it working, chatting, moving from point to point, and in general living their lives. I couldn't even imagine just how chaotic and lively the deeper parts of the settlement must have been.
As I sped closer I noticed that there was no front gate or anything like that into the settlement, with the vast majority of entrances and exits I could see being jawa-sized most likely on purpose to keep larger outsiders out. Most non-jawas were outside of the settlement, wheeling and dealing with the countless number of stalls and shops the jawas had set up to trade various pieces of scraps, parts, barely refurbished technology, rebuilt droids, and more likely gathered from the Scraplands. There were a few structures scattered about that looked like it could cater to larger beings, but they were most certainly the minority.
Beyond all that, the biggest thing that grabbed my attention was a number of parked sandcrawlersnext to the settlement, with most of them having jawas constantly moving back and forth from inside the large vehicles carrying all kinds of discarded pieces of technology. Well, the base form was of the sandcrawler I was familiar with, but these ones had clearly been modified for more of the trash-filled environment that was the Scrapland over that of the sandy one of Tatooine; with their large armored wheels to travel over debris, large metal plows likely meant to push garbage away from it, a number of mechanical arms and cranes on top and sides of vehicle, and other little things that made it clear that these vehicles worked in a very different environment compared to that of the jawas' homeworld.
I took a moment to just watch as one of the crawlers started to motor away at a relatively slow speed and into the much denser mass of trash before them, reminding me that technically speaking the whole settlement lived on the edge of the Scrapland despite the massive wreck the jawas lived in and other large pieces of scrap and garbage piles around here.
And if I was gonna find a way through that huge twisted and dangerous maze I would need a good guide, and thankfully there was a whole settlement full of people who worked in it every day right in front of me. Still, given their nature and cultural practices, it would just be plain common sense to keep my stuff close and keep an eye out for wandering hands whenever I was around the jawa.
I sped through the outside marketplace, looking for whatever sign that might point towards the solution towards my current problem, passing by many jawas who shouted to get my attention, held up various items, and did everything they could to attract a customer if they weren't already with one. Up close I noted that while they wore the traditional robes of their people, they, like the sandcrawlers, had been modified for their current environment with what looked like thicker materials like synthleather and having built-in breather masks under their hoods which connected to an air supply strapped to their chests. All of it helped to better protect them from the local hazards, likely functioning more like tiny environmental suits.
It made them look like mini Death Korps Guardsman, with the lenses in their breath masks glowing that classic yellow, making them that weird mix of creepy and cute.
Eventually, I found what I think I was looking for, spotting a stall that wasn't selling any garbage and instead was surrounded by a number of various vehicles, most of them kinda rough looking, with a sign that declared it was offering the services of 'Scrapland Travel Guides'. I made my way over to it and parked my speeder near the front of the stall where I could keep my eye on it and approached the jawa manning it.
"(Welcomes, one that is not jawa! We jawas of tribe offer jawa knowledge so not jawa safe travel land of metal and treasure! Not jawa interested?)" the jawa asked me in the jawa trade language, another language my PUT thankfully knew, which was a very simplified form of Jawaese that jawas used to talk to most non-jawas since the latter couldn't pick up the pheromones that species used to express things properly among themselves.
"Yes, I would be very interested," I nodded to the short being. "I actually need to reach Ten Mile Plateau and the old energy collection station there before the end of the day."
"(Tall, flat rock very far. Time too short. Take train closer)," the jawa offered.
"I would, but sadly that isn't an option and I really need to get there soon," I explained. "I can pay well for service."
"(Money no problem. Problem poison giants and speed tribes. Fastest path to tall, flat rock through their tribe lands. Very much danger. Safe path go around and far, take great time)," the jawa explained. "(No jawa dumb as rock to do.)"
Shit, that didn't sound good, and while I wasn't sure exactly what those 'poison giants' and 'speed tribes' were, that didn't change the fact I needed this deal to get through or else I doubted Cid would ever be willing to work with me again, to say nothing about losing my ship.
"I really need to get there," I emphasized. "Is there really no one willing to guide me?"
The jawa paused in thought for a moment before speaking up again. "(One jawa hurt in head to might take path of death, but not jawa not like)."
"Why wouldn't I like them?" I asked curiously.
"(Jawa head full of spirits)," the jawa explained, which told me nothing clearly, but considering I wasn't in a position to be picky I decided to take the chance.
"Call him up and let him know he has a customer," I answered.
"(Not jawa's wish of death)," was his only response.