Disclaimer: Yeah, yeah…I mean, no. No. I don't own this.
Defining the Jedi: Shield
It was ironic, Bao-Dur thought. They had only just missed the entrance to the factory, way back on Telos before they had ever found Atris, back when he had first reunited with the General. The old military base, the one the mercs had disappeared in. The HK-50 factory was in the sublevel, the one that Darden hadn't bothered accessing, because there was nothing she needed down there. Except if they had gone down there, when the planet wasn't under attack, and all four of them were capable of destroying droids, the situation wouldn't have been as bad.
HK-47 couldn't destroy the HK-50s. It was a function of his self-preservation programming. Despite his hatred of the upgrades, he recognized them as himself, and therefore couldn't exert terminal force upon them. He'd been able to torture one for information, but Bao-Dur had had to kill it that time, too. They were hoping that they'd find some clue here how to circumvent the self-preservation programming, but if they didn't, then Bao-Dur would have to do all the heavy-lifting down here.
"Query: Why are we standing here, meatbag? I am eager to bring this spawning ground of the imposters down in flames!"
Usually Bao-Dur liked to hear HK-47 talk. He had unusual color, for a droid. But his speech patterns couldn't break the tension this time. "Let's go, then," he told the droid.
He sliced open the door.
The ante-chamber was deserted. Bao-Dur looked around. The room was large and clean. Doors led off to the left, right, and straight ahead. He walked a few steps in, turned around, and saw yet another elevator right beside the one they had just come down in.
"Statement: The source of the abominations will be below," HK-47 remarked.
Bao-Dur nodded, not saying a word in case a non-droid voice set off any alarms. He saw a camera in the corner, drew a blaster, and shot it out just before the beam caught him. He knew he might not register on any security system the droids had in this place, anyway, but there was no point taking chances. Still, Iridonians didn't usually travel this close to the center of the galaxy. Republic tech could usually register Rodians, Bith, Twi'leks, Hutts: the alien species that had had some success breeding and colonizing across the galaxy. Zabraks weren't one of them. Even Jedi had difficulty sensing Bao-Dur's presence. The General was the exception. That was probably why Bao-Dur had felt so strongly drawn to Darden in the first place. He wasn't an alien to the General. He was a person. The others on the Ebon Hawk were learning to sense him, particularly Visas, who had a knack for that sort of thing. Darden had always been able to, though, and it meant something to Bao-Dur.
Anyway, that was all irrelevant to the task at hand. The point was, HK-47's entry to the HK-50 base hadn't tripped the system, because the HK-50s recognized him as themselves just as HK-47 recognized them as himself. And Bao-Dur hadn't tripped the system because it was probably based off of Republic systems, and not Exchange ones, which usually had a wider-range of body identification protocols. They were safe for now, so long as he kept quiet.
He went to the door to the elevator, but it was locked down. Bao-Dur tried to slice it, but gave it up as a bad job. He didn't know the code the system here was based on. He would have to find a computer before he could hack the door, because he didn't have any of the specialized equipment that could get him in without it. If he could find a computer, though, he could get the code and use that to slice into the entire system. Doors, factory, everything. In theory.
He looked at HK-47 and jerked his thumb at one of the doors. HK-47 said nothing, but started moving towards the door Bao-Dur had indicated. He'd processed the need for Bao-Dur's silence, and was acting accordingly.
HK-47 was a highly effective model, with more than his share of artificial intelligence, an amazing synthesized learning program, and not only the standardized logic centers and emotional processing, but problem solving routines and something of an intuition package to boot. They said Revan had made him. Bao-Dur would've liked to talk shop with her, because she'd crafted a work of art when she had. It was part of the reason Bao-Dur had agreed to help HK-47. Aside from the strategic need to get the HK-50s out of the battle on Telos, he really didn't want to see their predecessor damaged. HK-47 had only let him do the most rudimentary of repairs so far. He hadn't been allowed to really delve into the core of the droid like he wanted to, but he thought that if he could gain HK-47's trust by helping him out with this, that might change.
The two of them entered the door on the right in search of a computer terminal. Up to this point, the place had seemed deserted, but Bao-Dur sensed a hum of electricity in this hall. He brought up his lightsaber just in time. Employing Shien, he deflected several blaster bolts from the four guard droids stationed in the hall. So the HK-50 factory hadn't been left undefended while the droids were at war. Bao-Dur reached out with the Force and smashed the systems of the battle droids.
HK-47 swiveled his triangular head to glare at Bao-Dur. He was annoyed that Bao-Dur hadn't let him shoot the droids. Bao-Dur looked levelly back at the assassin droid. The point wasn't for HK-47 to kill things, even though the droid hadn't really been able to act according to his primary function since Dantooine. The point was to stop the production of the HK-50 droids and shut down the ones in the field, by the most efficient means possible. HK-47's optical sensors dimmed as his own logical processes caught up to the fact, and he turned his head away and gestured with his gun at a nearby console.
Bao-Dur went over to the computer. It asked for a password. Bao-Dur entered a few lines of code to bypass the security, and walked right into the protected files. Lines of text filled the screen, giving him the details of every computerized device in the place, and access to more than a few. It was almost too easy, Bao-Dur thought. Sometimes he wished for a system he couldn't get into in under ten seconds. It would be nice to encounter a challenge now and again.
He raised his eyebrows at the readouts, then scrambled the speakers of the console, before he addressed HK-47. "It looks like this place is under lockdown while the attack on Citadel Station is underway. The door to the main factory won't open unless the emergency evacuation program is triggered, and I can't do that from here. We have to shut down the main reactor up here. I can pull up a map—"
"Command: Plug me in and download it to me directly, meatbag," HK-47 interrupted, obviously ready to begin. "Statement: I will lead the way to the reactor."
The others from the Ebon Hawk would have probably been offended by HK-47's 'command,' Bao-Dur reflected. He was just amused. He could take HK-47 apart as easily as he had crushed those guard droids. It was funny how the droid acted like he didn't know it. Bao-Dur plugged HK-47 in and hit the key to transfer the facility map to the droid's memory.
"Command: Follow me," HK-47 said when the process was complete.
There were a few other guard droids in between them and the reactor control chamber, but they were as easy to take down as the first squad. As Bao-Dur entered the reactor control room after HK-47, he was starting to believe the whole mission would be a walk in the park, but right as HK-47 reached for the control to shut down the reactor core, a speaker crackled.
A voice similar to HK-47's, but flatter, spoke. The HK-50s had finally realized they were here. "Scathing Reminder: HK-47 unit, if you attempt to shut down the reactor core, you will be harming the production of other HK-50 units. Now step away from the control room. That's a good droid."
Bao-Dur distinctly heard HK-47's motivator clunk, and then the droid stepped away. Bao-Dur sighed. He'd figured it would come to this. He stepped forward to shut down the reactor core himself, only to find himself staring down the barrel of HK-47's blaster rifle.
"Statement: How curious." HK-47 sounded irritated. "Not only can I not press the button to shut down the reactor core myself, but I find I cannot allow you to do so, either. Not when I know that doing so harms the production of these cheap knock-offs of…me. How very disappointing. If you take another step toward the controls, I will be forced to shoot your brains out."
Bao-Dur stood very still. "There won't be any need for that, Aytchkay. I can modify your memory core so that you forget that shutting down the reactor core hurts the HK-50s."
"Statement: That would be ideal, meatbag, but those abominations would simply remind me again over the speaker," HK-47 pointed out.
Bao-Dur moved a little, backward. HK-47 lowered his blaster rifle. Though he knew that Bao-Dur intended to harm the HK-50 units, he also knew somewhere in his core that he wanted this to happen, though it went against his self-preservation programming. He knew Bao-Dur was an ally in this place.
Bao-Dur knew that the second he ceased to be an ally, or Darden's orders as nominal master of HK-47 that he not harm her companions ceased to apply, HK-47 would have no reason to keep him alive, or to deny himself the pleasure of plastering Bao-Dur's guts over whatever room they happened to be in. Atton had once remarked that HK-47 was 'one sick droid,' and he was right. HK-47 had been made and programmed by Revan when she was Dark Lord of the Sith. He reflected who she had been at the time. But though Revan might have enjoyed killing, and had programmed her assassin droid to enjoy killing, she had also been logical. She hadn't gone around killing those that were useful to her, and neither did HK-47. As long as Bao-Dur was useful to HK-47, he was safe enough.
"So we need to take out the speaker system. That's easy enough," he told HK-47. "I can do that from the computer back there, or from the one in the room we just went through."
HK-47's optics brightened. Revan had really worked on the details. Not only did HK-47 possess top-notch emotional simulation, he could even express those emotions physically, in a limited capacity. "Statement: Then let us return to the console. Your stratagem is a good one, for a meatbag."
Bao-Dur turned to leave the control room, smiling, but out of the droid's line of sight.
Ten minutes later, they had returned to the reactor core control room, and the speaker was dead. Bao-Dur was ready with the hydrospanner he kept in his pocket to tinker with HK-47's memory.
The droid was nervous. "Caution: Be oh-so-very careful. I am an invaluable piece of craftsmanship. Please do not damage me."
"I've worked on you before," Bao-Dur reminded him. "You weren't destroyed then, were you?"
He twiddled with the droid's recent memory, performing a very specific wipe, set to wipe out just the last half hour. Then he entered a tricky little code into the droid's programming that would distance his self-preservation functions from his central processor. Basically, the code would keep him from realizing himself that his actions could indirectly impact the wellbeing of the HK-50 units. He still wouldn't be able to wipe them out, to shoot them directly or direct weapons at them. To do that would be to come too close to messing with the programming that directed HK-47 to evade weapons aimed at himself. But they'd be able to press buttons and shut down production, and even shut down the other droids at work on Citadel. Bao-Dur closed HK-47's casing, and reactivated him.
"All right. How do you feel?"
"Diagnostic: All systems are functioning," HK-47 replied. "There is something I am forgetting, yet, somehow, that comforts me."
"And you wouldn't have a problem with me shutting down the reactor core?" Bao-Dur said, with his finger above the panel.
"Retort: Why should I? By all means, shut down the reactor core."
Bao-Dur grinned, and did so. Sirens started blaring as the factory activated its emergency subroutines. Emergency generators whirred to life. But the door back in the main room to the underground factory would be open.
"Let's go," he said to HK-47.
The HK-50s were waiting for them. Three of them, outside the door.
"HK-50 Statement:" one said. "So you have finally arrived. There was a high probability that you would find this place, even with your archaic tracking programs."
"Statement," said another. "Your arrival means nothing. You cannot harm us any more than you could harm yourself."
"Chiding Statement:" chided the third. "To think that we were built from such schematics. I would flush red if we had durasteel pigmentation centers."
They addressed HK-47. They seemed to hold him in as much contempt as they held him, and to regard Bao-Dur as a complete nonentity. HK-47 half-raised his blaster rifle. Bao-Dur watched, mildly interested, as the droid tried to defy his programming and destroy his upgraded selves.
"Smug Statement:" the second HK-50 droid said. "You cannot fire. Your archaic attack protocols are useless against us."
"Smug Revelation: Your behavior core self-preservation programs prevent it. To kill us would be to kill yourself."
"Superior Statement: This information may be difficult for your sub-standard core to process. But you cannot deny that your motivators have locked, and you cannot depress the firing stud of your weapon."
Bao-Dur was rapidly losing patience with the HK-50's manner of speaking in turn, in those identical, flat voices, with their gloating, and with the way they were continuing to ignore him. HK-47 might not be able to shoot them, but he was not likewise impaired. He raised his hand to call the Force to crush their motivators, but HK-47 cut him off, his optical sensors gleaming. He addressed the HK-50s.
"Statement: So, I cannot harm you."
"Statement: That is correct," an HK-50 replied.
"Conclusion: And you cannot harm me."
The HK-50's optical sensors flashed yellow with annoyance. "Irritated Statement: That is what we said, obsolete unit. There must be a delay in your processors."
HK-47 looked oddly triumphant. "Statement: Then that is all I need to know." He swiveled, turned to Bao-Dur. "Statement: You saw the weapons arsenal on the layout of this level. Let us go. The work you performed on me earlier will not be sufficient. There will be more advanced tools there for a more in-depth job."
The HK-50 droids looked at him, but still did not seem to register him. Bao-Dur blinked, realizing that whatever organic recognition programming the droids had, it wasn't as advanced as HK-47's. The droids simply did not acknowledge him as an organic, and therefore a potential hostile to be terminated. He slowly started to grin. Revan had been smarter, more thorough, than whoever had mass-produced these knockoffs. Normally he was a little put off by the core world residents' ignorance of his species. Today it might save his life.
"All right, HK-47. Let's go."
"Confused Query: Where are you going?" demanded an HK-50 droid as they started to walk through the one door on the level they hadn't been through yet.
"Ineffectual Command:" cried another. "Stop!"
"Ineffectual Command: We command you to stop!"
HK-47 paused. He swiveled on his torso's axis to face the three droids. "Statement: You cannot stop me. You cannot harm me. In order for this stalemate to end, I would need to end my self-preservation programming. Conclusion: I would need to stop being one of you. I have concluded that this is something I am willing to accept."
"Statement: You cannot change your own programming," an HK-50 objected.
No, but I can do it, and he knows it, Bao-Dur thought. But he knew HK-47 wouldn't alert the HK-50s to this and enable one of them to search Zabraks on the nets and add the recognition to their organic database.
"Statement: But you said so yourself," HK-47 said, very logically, and very, very coldly. "You have just admitted your own weakness. Conclusion: you have just shown me your soft, meatbag-like underbellies, and said, 'HK-47, please shoot me there repeatedly until I die.'"
"Statement: Even if you could, there is not time," an HK-50 said, and there was a new flatness to the voice. Bao-Dur felt his pulse increase slightly. He wondered how the others were getting along, against Atris, against Nihilus. If the Handmaiden was all right. If Citadel was already falling.
"Statement: We shall see," HK-47 said, then led them out of the room. The HK-50 droids did not follow them. Their current function was to protect the factory, not chase after what they termed an 'obsolete unit'.
When they arrived at the armory, HK-47 turned to him. "Query: Can you do it?"
Bao-Dur looked around. There was a maintenance droid over in the corner. Sparking, malfunctioning, but fully outfitted with all the tools necessary to maintain other droids. He looked up at his remote, and the little guy beeped at him optimistically. He smiled. His remote had always been there, ever since he was a kid. Bad times, good times, it was the one constant. "I can do it," he told HK-47, and set to work.
HK-47's circuits had a rhythm to them, an artistry. All droids' circuits did. All you had to do was find the pattern, and you could fix anything. Bao-Dur had never met anyone else who could find the pattern like he could. He thought that the General might be able to do it, one day; she thought the right way. But she needed more experience, and to gain that experience she needed to spend more time with droids and repairs than she had to spend. No, this stuff was why she kept Bao-Dur around. This was his gift, and now, this was his gift to the galaxy.
. He couldn't make up for destroying Malachor. Tens of thousands had died above that world. An entire culture, and thousands of good Republic soldiers, too, hundreds of Jedi. The General had pushed the button. But Bao-Dur had built the weapon. He couldn't make up for that if he lived a dozen lifetimes. But ever since that day he had dedicated himself to preserving worlds, instead of destroying them. Telos had been his masterwork. An entire shield network, designed specifically to aid in recreation of a world torn by war. Now he could protect it from annihilation, by what he did here.
Bao-Dur worked quickly, hurrying to finish up repairs so they could finish the job and save Telos. Save something in the galaxy for once, rather than destroying it. That was what being a Jedi was all about, he thought. Fixing what was broken, protecting those that needed it. And sometimes, in order to be able to fix, and to protect, it was a Jedi's job to attack. The General had taught him that, this past year. She always did what needed to be done to protect as many as possible. And she'd been teaching him, day by day, not to carry around the guilt from Malachor, but instead to resolve to do better in the future, to make the galaxy a better place. He was learning, bit by bit. He was a killer. So was HK-47. But that didn't mean that he couldn't do some good.
Bao-Dur finished the programming job, fixing it in HK-47's memory that he was one-of-a-kind, that the HK-50 units were entirely other, and enabling, if needed, self-sacrifice. He closed the panel, satisfied. HK-47 was different now. This would have ramifications on the droid's behavior. It would give him a lot more autonomy. He only hoped that in the end, it would be for the best. He switched HK-47 back on.
Without a word of thanks, without any words whatsoever, HK-47 started back towards the factory. On the way, he tossed aside his own blaster-rifle and picked up one of the HK-50's more streamlined, deadlier ones.
Bao-Dur had to run to catch up with the long-legged droid.
From the doorway to the main room, Bao-Dur heard HK-47 say gleefully, "Statement: Assassination protocols activated."
"Smug Statement: You cannot fire. Your archaic attack proto-"
The HK-50's smug statement vanished in a scream as HK-47 opened fire. The HK-50s had not modified their programming. They still recognized HK-47 as an HK droid. And now, they would all be deactivated because of it.
Bao-Dur caught up as HK-47 opened fire on the second droid. He crushed the third, and jogged to keep up as HK-47 headed for the elevator, and the factory.
"They'll recognized the change in your programming soon enough," Bao-Dur warned HK-47 in the elevator. "We'll have who knows how many droids to deal with."
"Statement: Leave that to me, meatbag."
"I'm with you," Bao-Dur said. "We have to shut them down on Citadel."
"Statement: They will recognize you as a threat soon, too, Jedi," HK-47 returned. "You would do well to shield. You are not a droid, and are therefore much easier to assassinate."
"Let them try."
The factory was mostly deserted, but there were still droids in it, and as Bao-Dur and HK-47 fought their way through to the main control chamber the going got harder and harder. In the second room they reached the HK-50s began firing back at HK-47. In the fifth, they started firing at Bao-Dur. A droid was changing the central programming codes, and the factory was beaming out the revised signal. Still, Bao-Dur and HK-47 crushed them into so many spare parts right up until the point where they reached the main factory control room. HK-47 opened the door, and there stood ten or more HK-50 units before a window out into the factory. Hundreds and hundreds moved outside the window, down the assembly line, being outfitted with rifles and programmed with protocols, and then made ready to send out to make war on the universe.
Bao-Dur was tired. Telos felt dead, and the atmosphere of death was slowly growing. There was a growing dull sensation around him that he recognized as the pull of the Dark Side. He'd felt it on Korriban, and in the tomb of Freedon Nadd on Dxun. It sapped his strength. They were almost finished. The mission was almost complete. But he didn't think he had the energy to crush these droids with the Force. He activated his dark blue lightsaber, the Guardian's blade. The upgraded cutting laser on his remote slid out.
The HK-50 unit in the very center of the enormous room spoke to HK-47. "Statement: We do not know what you hope to gain by coming here. It defies logic. Statement: I do not understand what you hope to gain by fighting us. You have no chance of victory.
"Recognition: You are obsolete. You kill specific organics, and only when permitted to. Proud Declaration: We need no such orders. We have been programmed without inhibitions, without restraint. We kill who we want, when we want. We have destroyed planets, assassinated economies. We have wiped out entire races. Ended hostilities." The droid paused. "Query: Do you understand what this means?"
HK-47 was very quiet for a moment. All that could be heard was the hum of the factory machinery and the whirring of the motivators inside HK-47's rust-red chassis. Then he replied. "Answer: Yes. It means you will never understand. When I kill, when I dispatch a target, it is not about wanton slaugher, about body count. It is about finesse, function. Doing more with less. It is art."
Like his creator, HK-47 was smarter than wanton slaughter. Bao-Dur looked at the droid in admiring incredulity. Someone else had activated this factory, programmed the HK-50s. Not Revan. Someone who admired Revan, but couldn't quite match her subtlety, her magnificence. Bao-Dur wondered if there was a clue here that might explain how these droids had come to be.
Pain exploded in Bao-Dur's side, and he fell, wide-eyed, to his knees. Without warning, without finishing the customary gloating, the lead droid had shot at him. Now he laughed, as much as the HK-50 droids could laugh. "Scoffing Statement: Oh, yes, art," he said, still speaking to HK-47. "It is pathetic that you cling to the belief that your function somehow transcends your construction. It is only evidence of your archaic beliefs—there is no higher purpose in our behavior core." Bao-Dur tried to bring his lightsaber up to block the next shot, from another droid on the right, but he only deflected it. It grazed his shoulder. "Only assassination, murder, and the propogation of our units." With each stated function, another droid fired at Bao-Dur. He deflected the first two, but the third hit him in the right side of his neck. The edges of his vision started to swim.
"Proclamation: When we dispose of this galaxy, we shall move on. There are organics throughout the universe, and we shall murder them all. The stars belong to us."
The words sounded far away. Bao-Dur had fallen on his uninjured side. Another shower of blaster bolts hit him, and they burned through the weak places in his armor. Blood started to pool around him, but now there was blaster fire, and it wasn't aimed at him. But Bao-Dur couldn't see what was going on.
If he could rest…just for a moment. He had to…had to deactivate the droids, disable the factory, stop the HK-50s attack on Citadel Station. It was…important…he remembered, it was important. And after that, there was Malachor. Malachor…Bao-Dur tried to look for his remote, but his vision was fading in and out. He tried to grab a medpac out of his pack, but he'd fallen on the power button in his arm, and his fist, the one from Malachor, lay useless without the electric field that operated it.
The blaster fire was still going on. Then it stopped, but Bao-Dur still lay there, unable to see who had triumphed. He tried to crane his neck, focus his vision. He'd stopped hurting, somehow, but he couldn't make his body obey him.
He reached out for the Force—tried to hear it sing, hear the gears of life turn and see the circuits of the stars and planets connect. But his Force vision was disabled, too, not by a blaster…the Dark Side. …Wouldn't matter, anyway, he thought. The biggest wound he'd ever managed to heal was a papercut. He…didn't see the world like that…not organic…not like the others. And he had a feeling he had a bit…a bit more than a papercut.
But now his remote had found him. It was whirring by his head, beeping frantically. "Hey…I'm…I'll be okay," he tried to say. He wasn't sure if it came out. "Remember…your programming…if…if she goes back there. And Kreia…need a way out…if she goes back there. 'member."
The others. Were they safe? He wanted them now, as he felt too hot, too cold, too blind, too deaf. Nothing was working. Did they know he was thinking of them now? Did they know they were his friends? He wasn't so good with people…but he'd been learning…
It was quiet. So quiet. The hum of the factory had stopped. Or had he stopped hearing things?
The others—even Mandalore. Better the enemy you know, right? And the kid, and Mira. Had they found the Handmaiden? Was she where he was now? He hoped not…he should've told them all, especially Atton and Visas…should've told them.
"General," Bao-Dur rasped. He tried forcing his eyes open again, but he was tired…so tired.
All he could make out was a red shape against the white light of the factory. HK-47. "We won, then?" he asked. "Telos…is it safe?"
Then he saw the black barrel leveled at his face. He tried to smile…couldn't manage it.
"Please…"
HK-47 fired.