Skywalker Technical Maintenance Service

Skywalker Technical Maintenance Service was a fake company invented by the droids C-3PO and R2-D2 as a cover story as they were trying to evade Imperial stormtroopers on the streets of Mos Eisley on the planet Tatooine.

The two droids had escaped from their starship, the Tantive IV, in the aftermath of the Battle of Tatooine, and Imperial forces had pursued them ever since, seeking the strategically vital Death Star Plans that had been hidden inside R2-D2 in the final minutes of the battle. Following a Command Control Instruction, R2-D2 had sought out the Jedi Knight Obi-Wan Kenobi, bringing along C-3PO and Luke Skywalker, the Tatooine farm boy who had become the droids' master. In order to bring the plans to the Rebel Alliance, Kenobi had brought Skywalker and the droids to Mos Eisley to charter a starship that could take them off-world.

As the two humans made arrangements to sell Skywalker's X-34 landspeeder, the two droids were left on their own to walk to the spaceport's Docking Bay 94. The streets were full of Stormtroopers hunting for them, and they found that the entrance to the docking bay was locked. Artoo-Detoo, ignoring his counterpart's protests, knocked on a nearby door. The proprietor of a shop answered, and Artoo told him that the droids were there to conduct maintenance. See-Threepio translated and then invented the name of the company on the spot.

Threepio told the proprietor that the brand-new company was conducting a publicity campaign. Its employees were ostensibly going door to door offering to repair, recalibrate, and check the systems on any equipment specified for free. To apply more pressure, Threepio said that it was a one-time offer only. The first and only customer of Skywalker Technical Maintenance Service accepted the offer. He directed the two droids to service an energy lathe that was running out of sync. He left them to work by themselves and left his shop on an errand.

The two droids saw that stormtroopers were still conducting a house-to-house search of the area. They closed and locked the door and waited for the troopers to pass by. When they opened the door once again, they spotted Luke Skywalker and Obi-Wan Kenobi heading for Docking Bay 94. Reunited with their new master, the two employees of Skywalker Technical Maintenance Service abandoned the task that they had promised to take care of without even beginning to ameliorate the energy lathe's unsatisfactory condition.

Skywalker Technical Maintenance Service was an extremely small business. Its labor pool consisted entirely of one astromech droid and one protocol droid. In fact, it was so small that its presumed chief executive—Luke Skywalker—was likely unaware of its existence.

Text and facts from the “Skywalker Technical Maintenance Service” article on Wookieepedia, licensed under CC BY-SA 3.0. Modified for this site.