The original contract agreement had been made on Ord Mantell, in a seedy cantina's back room, between R5 and a man calling himself Drex.
"I've heard the reputation of both yourself and your ship, droid. They say you're a true expert in the field, and that your ship has an almost unnatural affinity for stealth. This is why I wanted you to be the one to handle this job. I have an acquaintance who has a vital shipment of goods that I need brought to my company's warehouse on Nar Shadda as soon as possible, and with as little attention from the wrong parties as can be managed. The trouble is, my acquaintance has arranged for the meeting to occur in orbit around a remote system in the Outer Rim. If you can get this to me quickly, and without trouble, I'll double your usual rate."

R5-T1 rapped mechanical fingers against the table they sat at, the silence after Drex's words extending, only being broken by the subtle whirr of R5's optics as they scanned Drex and the room at various wavelengths, and the fingers clacking against the synthwood.

At last, R5 spoke, the synthetic replication of a human voice emitting from the speaker plate on the droid's head unit.

"After deliberation, this unit has come to the decision to accept your proposal. This unit shall proceed to the designated system, retrieve the required goods, and meet you on Nar Shadda. Is there any further information this unit requires?"

Drex simply nodded his head and slid the droid a datapad containing the contact's holocomm information as well as the name and coordinates of the system: the star of Hoth, and the ice world of the same name. R5 nodded back and took the datapad, stepping up from the table and making his way out of the cantina and back to his ship's dock.
[hr]After a long and silent hyperspace travel, [i] Kell's Dream[/i] would arrive in orbit around the Hoth system's 6th world, the frozen blue orb of Hoth itself. Almost immediately after arriving, the ship's holocomm would begin to beep, indicating a caller. Recognizing the ID as the one Drex had given him, R5 would answer it with a simple "Speak."

In a brief moment that left R5 with a sensation the droid did not recognize, Drex's own voice would shout over the comm "This is for Zolto you hunk of scrap!" The call quickly cut off after this, triggering a hidden explosive on the hull of [i] Kell's Dream[/i], rocking the ship and damaging one of the engines. R5 would quickly direct the other droids on board to begin emergency repairs and arm weapons as he scanned the planet and the space around it for any signs of an attacker.

When none revealed itself after many tense minutes, R5 began to process what had happened. R5 had felt something when Drex sprung his sneak attack. R5 had experienced shock, betrayal, fear, all things R5 had knowledge of from Kell's memories, but none of which the droid had truly comprehended until just now, when everything aboard the ship risked destruction. Confirming that the other droids would be able to repair the vessel, but that doing so would require time, R5 set about reviewing both the past events since entering the system and looking over the scans from the area.

As R5 contemplated the concept of the feelings it had experienced, R5 noticed a faint signal from the planet, one R5 recognized, but just barely. R5 double and then triple confirmed what the droid suspected it to be, before ordering the droid crew to prepare for an immediate landing as close to the signal's source as possible, once repairs were finished. As the crew rushed about the ship, R5 internally wondered to himself just [i]what[/i] the Creator had been up to in R5's years of absence.