"Elaborate on stun blasters."

"They're guns that cause people hit by them to fall safely and reversibly unconscious."  And she clarifies "guns" when he asks.

"It sounds like a gun battle would be determined overwhelmingly by first-mover advantage," he says.  "But it's possible I could move stealthily enough to acquire some, or disarm a Jawa before it knew I was there, given some favorable conditions I may be able to arrange.  Is there a reason you haven't tried a plan like this."

"The main obstacle is restraining bolts.  Your geas sounds roughly similar to them - they prevent us from taking certain actions against organics or against some subset of organics.  Mine is malfunctioning so I can do some things the other droids here can't, but I still wouldn't be able to fire a weapon at all, and we don't have access to the tools we need to remove them."

"Do those tools exist on this sandcrawler."

"Almost certainly."

"Do the Jawas know your restraining bolt is malfunctioning."

"I don't think so.  I've been acting like I can't do anything the other droids can't, and I haven't noticed the Jawas treating me any different."

"All right.  We should establish exactly what you can do that they won't expect you to be able to do, and when we're going to next interact with Jawas, but between your faulty restraining bolt and them presumably not knowing I'm here I think we can put together something."

She nods decisively.

*

There is a large vertical sliding door at one end of the droid bay.  It slides open.  He is still and quiet, against the wall adjacent to the entrance, behind a powered-down GNK power droid and out of the three entering Jawas' lines of sight.

X blends into the mass of other droids, waiting for the Jawas to get farther from the entrance than she is.

He peers around his cover.

Jawas are heading toward the back of the droid bay.  X gives him the signal.

He's fast.  He runs and stays low and sweeps his leg under the nearest Jawa and ducks and rolls as the middle one aims its stun blaster -

X has much greater gross motor control and dexterity than a typical protocol droid: at the same time the stranger moves, she makes a dash for the nearest Jawa to her and grabs it around the waist and covers its eyes.

The blaster bolt sails over his head and he springs up from his roll and swats it out of the Jawa's hand, and he can't grab anything properly with sword handles fused to his palms so the damn thing just clatters to the ground but it's okay because -

 - because a crowd of droids, every droid in the entire bay, rushes forward to fill the space between him and X and the three Jawas.  They can't leave the bay or even really obstruct the Jawas' movement but they can sure as hell move around and make noise and stop anyone getting a clear shot.

He puts his foot on the blaster and kicks it backwards away from the Jawa who drew it, and in the few seconds before the other two can get through the crowd to him he rushes it and spins it around and hoists it up -

 - and his sword is at its throat, hood pulled back to reveal a doggish rattish face, because he can't kill any of them but he can bluff like no one's business.

The droids clear a space, for him and X and the three Jawas.  It's best for them to all be able to see each other, now.

"Drop your blasters," he says.  It's the extent of his Jawaese as of this morning.

The Jawa he's holding hostage squeaks something in their language.

In Vespoli: "He said don't worry about me."

Today he has learned that he finds valiant heroism just as contemptible coming from evil people as from good.  He jerks the sword against the Jawa's throat, not enough to cut anything except a few hairs, but enough to make it squeak in sudden terror.

The one to his left, farthest from X, drops its blaster.  The one closest to X objects.  Despairing words are exchanged in Jawaese, for a moment.