Back in the hangar, Rev was having a hard time handling so many droids at once. Never in his life had he been put in charge of another droid. He already had enough trouble dealing with himself as it is.

In total, there were three new droids, excluding the other that had come in earlier. All of them seemed to be of the newer variants but thankfully were not all that foolish. Maybe he'd been mistaken to assume these newer variants were less intelligent. But that wouldn't matter in the long run, once this was all over, they could rebuild and improve their intelligence manually. Rags could most certainly help.

"What are our orders sir?" The droid leading the group of three asked Rev.

"Hook up to the transport ship," Rev hesitated to say anything else, he wasn't a very good liar.

"Roger, roger"

Rev tilted his head. How odd. The droids hadn't questioned his order. That itself almost made him feel as if he were a natural leader. Almost.

For a moment, he feared these newer droids would never change and they would forever be stuck as pawns for their leaders but of course there just had to be a way to change them, there was already enough evidence to prove it.

He looked back to the outside of the hangar, wondering if Ron had sent over anymore droids. His receptors caught a brief blotch of red somewhere in the crowd. A security droid.

A voice suddenly blasted into his audio receptors.

"Rev, I've sent the last group of droids over. That should be enough to nearly fill the ship to its max," Ron said over the comm line.

"Hurry back, there's a security droid patrolling here and I don't think I'd be able to fool him into thinking I'm a high ranking unit"

"Oh don't worry, he's one of the droids I sent over, I might be able to get him to help us. I'll be there soon to help," Ron said, cutting the line shortly after.

He looked back over to the ship, relieved to see that the droids had already hooked up to the ship with their blasters on their sides. Wherever Ron was taking them, he'd better have a plan on how to convert the droids to align with their goals of freeing as many droids as they could. If they were to turn on him, he wouldn't have the heart to kill them.

Rev didn't understand much about the world but the one thing he understood the best was how vital it was for a species to stick together. Only in groups would they be able to survive in the long term. Especially droids of their type.

He searched the room for Rags, becoming increasingly worried as he wasn't able to spot him anywhere.

'Maybe he's on the other side of the ship doing an inspection,' Rev thought to himself, walking over to see if his theory was true.

Sure enough, he was at the front of the ship tinkering with some wires of the exposed front panel.

"What are you doing?" Rev wasn't sure if he should be worried or intrigued.

"I was thinking, maybe I could mess with the programming in this ship. See what goes on inside, you know? I've never seen this model before – well, it's a modified version of a model that I've already seen," Rags said.

Rev contemplated leaving Rags to his devices but seeing as there was some downtime while he waited for Ron, he was most certainly going to take the chance to delve more into fine tuning his skills for their long journey ahead, "You said I could reprogram myself right?"

"Yeah," Rags piped up, turning his full attention to Rev.

"Well, could we do it with this ship?"

It hadn't occurred to him that perhaps they wouldn't be able to reprogram the droids they were evacuating if they had no access to any sort of Separatist terminal.

"That's a good question, based on what R4 showed me, theoretically it's possible but we'd have to figure it out. I could do some tinkering on my free time once I get back to repairing that AAT"

'That's not going to happen,' Rev thought.

"I think we can figure that out pretty quickly, how about we try it once we have everything ready?"

"Sure, as long as I don't get in trouble. I don't want to get relocated again"

"Deal"

The audible sound of clanking metal approaching the ship cut their conversation short.

Rev hurried back to the front of the ship.

Just as Ron had said, the last of the droids had come.

"Reporting for transportation sir," The unit leading the group said with a salute.

'What exactly did Ron say for all of these droids to treat him as a superior?' Rev thought to himself.

"Roger, link up to the transport ship"

Without another word, they marched onward. He relished in the distinct sound of metal clanking. Soon, everything he'd ever known and had grown accustomed to, would be eviscerated from the world, as if it had never existed. There was no doubt about that. He'd have to come to terms with it. They were made to serve one single purpose and they failed even at that.

It was time to move on.

One day they could see what they were truly capable of outside of war.

Rev opened the private comm link, "Ron, we're all set to leave. I can trap Rags in the ship once we get into the cockpit"

There was no response.

"Ron?"

As it were, he was having trouble just outside of the hangar.

"An evacuation? I have not been informed of this," the OOM unit said in visible disbelief.

"Yes, it was a last minute decision, the clones have been gaining too much territory at a pace we can't match. I have seen it with my own photoreceptors," Ron replied.

"And where will we go exactly? There is nowhere left to go but forward. We will not have our units be lost in vain. I will not go. I must stay. Even if we do evacuate, I must ensure all remaining droids in the area are given proper transportation. The security force is always the last to leave in such a situation"

Ron felt his processor rapidly increase in heat.

Why wouldn't he just listen as all the other units had?

He needed to keep a clear head if he wanted to get this OOM unit out.

'But would he even listen?' Ron thought to himself.

"Fine. I understand but could you at least assist us in loading the ship?"

He would get this droid off the planet one way or another.

The OOM unit shook his head, "I should still be patrolling. Why are you so insistent on having me be here anyways?"

Ron had one last trick to pull, "So I can do this"

In a flash, he unholstered the OOM unit's blaster and quickly set it to stun before firing it at him. He crashed to the ground, only having time to try and pull the weapon away from Ron but it was too late.

Ron threw the OOM's body over his shoulders and walked to the ship as fast as he could go. His pistons weren't meant to hold so much weight however, and they soon began to buckle.

The other droids that were running to and fro around the hangar area were too focused on their own duties to have even noticed Ron with an unconscious droid on his back.

"Rev, I need help over here," Ron said over their line.

Without a word, Rev ran over, taking some of the weight off of Ron's shoulders.

"Did you kill him?" Rev asked in disbelief.

"No, I just stunned him. He should be down for at least an hour"

"Oh good. If you had killed him, I wouldn't have allowed you on the ship"

"Really? And who was going to pilot it?"

"Rags knows a lot about ships but anyways that's not important. You didn't kill him"

Ron nodded in response.

"I couldn't ever kill another OOM unit"

Rags was still at the front of the ship, busy messing around with the wires. Collectively, Ron and Rev set the OOM unit down onto the floor, hiding him behind the many crates stacked at the back end of the ship. The other droids had already hooked themselves up and powered down.

"Hopefully he won't move around once we leave the atmosphere," Rev said looking at his handy work.

"Get into the cockpit, I'll get Rags inside," Ron said.

He left to the front of the ship where Rags was finally putting everything back together.

"Are you all done here?" Ron asked.

"Yeah, everything looks good. Did Rev tell you about-"

"Rags, you can explain all of that later. We have a problem with the chains inside. Some of them are coming loose. Can you take a look at it?" Ron said, cutting him off.

"Oh of course," Rags said, finally closing up the front panel.

Just as he turned the corner, both Ron and Rev hopped into the cockpit as fast as they could.

There was a small door in the middle of the cockpit with a small window to look inside the loading bay.

"He's in, close it," Rev said.

Ron hit the switch, trapping Rags inside. He made sure to lock the cockpit door as well.

"Hey! What are you doing?!" Rags said banging on the door.

"Don't worry we'll explain everything later," Rev said through the door behind them.

"I'm definitely going to be in trouble after this," Rags said, opting to take a seat on one of the crates. He felt something hit his leg, "Why is there another droid on the ground in here? Is he dead?"

"No, absolutely not. Like I said, we'll explain later. Make sure he doesn't move around too much," Rev replied.

"What? You expect me to follow your orders after kidnapping me?"

"Just do it, Rags. We don't have much choice here," Ron said.

"Where am I even supposed to sit? I'll fall over when we start moving"

"Just lay down behind the crates and try to stay in that spot"

Ron set the ship to begin takeoff. He guided it upward.

"Transport ship B-56 where are you going? You are not authorized to take off" a voice said, coming through the radio of the ship.

Ron cut the line. He'd done enough lying for the day, slowly but surely it had worn him thin.

"Why'd you turn it off?" Rev asked, becoming more and more worried by the second. Immediately, he looked over his shoulder to check for any ships coming their way.

"Because, I am tired of the lies I've had to tell. We've done enough of that. This is the last stretch, we have to be truthful with ourselves now. Besides, do you truly believe they would let a ship go without authorization? There's no point in lying or communicating with them," Ron said.

They had nearly reached the atmosphere, the green of the Felucian sky slowly faded to a darker ink black.

A loud alarm sounded off beside Ron.

"What's wrong?" Rev said, attempting to decipher what each button and switch did on the panel in front of him.

"They're sending two fighters to our position," Ron said, setting the throttle to full speed.

The ship rocked and creaked as they made their way past the atmosphere, the sky darkened further and further until they could finally see the stars. The void of black and white they hadn't seen in a long long time.

Another siren started, this time on Rev's side.

"I don't know how this thing works," Rev said, looking over to the screen that had initiated the alarm.

"What does that screen on your far right say?" Ron said, putting his focus behind keeping them steady.

Rev shifted over in his seat to take a look at it. Several lines wiggled around the display, all flashing red, "It says targeted with these numbers next to it, 15.4"

Ron shifted in his seat, tilting towards the doorway behind them, "Rags! Did you check to see if there's additional weapons on the back of this ship"

The ship jostled for a moment as they finally cleared the atmosphere.

"Hold on, I can barely keep myself in one place," Rags extended an arm out and held onto the handle of the doorway leading to the cockpit, "There's no rear guns on the back, it would be too much weight. This thing must already weigh a ton more because of this cockpit and interior loading bay"

"Hold on to something thing and make sure that other droid is alright"

"Why? What's going on?"

"We're about to be attacked," Rev responded.

"Oh great, now you're gonna get me killed!"

"No, we're freeing you!" Rev said in retaliation.

"Stop shouting, I need to hear those alarms if they go off," Ron said in his cold robotic voice.

Something rocked the ship violently as they began nearing the distance needed to warp to hyperspace.

A flurry of blaster fire from the fighters behind them whizzed past the ship's side, blinding Ron for a moment.

"Ok, I'm going to have to do some evasive maneuvers here. Rags strap yourself into something if you can," Ron ordered.

"Give me just a second," he reached over to a stray piece of cloth that had fallen out of one of the crates they had loaded in. He wrapped it around a group of the crates that had formed a makeshift anchor in the corner of the bay. He carefully wound it around himself and the OOM droid before finally tying a knot to secure themselves.

"Are you done? They're starting to close in again" Ron said, looking over to Rev frantically strapping himself into his seat as tightly as he possibly could.

"I'm ready," Rags flashed a thumbs up to the window of the door.

The ship activated another alarm as the fighters began closing the distance.

"They're a kilometer away now!" Rev said.

Ron tightened his grip on the control wheel and quickly went over as much as he could remember from his short time as a pilot.

He looked over to the screen waiting for the right moment to make his move.

1.5 kilometers, 1.3 kilometers, 1.1 kilometers.

He jerked the wheel upwards. The ship creaked under the stress. Both Ron and Rev were completely pushed back into their seats. Rags struggled to keep his grip on the door handle beside him while holding onto the OOM droid.

The ship finally leveled out. Just as quickly as they'd stabilized, the fighters were already back on their tail.

'Can't outrun them, can't outmaneuver them to some extent but I can outgun them' Ron thought to himself.

He let the wheel drift downwards for a moment, letting the fighters lock onto him for just a moment. Suddenly he pushed the wheel downward, the fighters followed suit. He jerked the wheel back up until he was climbing in altitude again. Once again, the fighters followed but lost some distance. He leveled the ship once again, this time letting the enemy get close once again.

The pilots maintained their cool knowing they had the upper hand.

Ron looked over to the tracking system once more. The enemy fighters were closing in to one kilometer again. 1.8..1.7..1.6

Ron pulled the throttle back all the way.

The ship rammed all three of them forward as they cut the speed.

Ron immediately targeted one of the fighters. The thick blaster bolts came out in bursts but just as they were about to hit, the fighters got out of dodge before any damage could be done.

The sensors on the transport ship were very limited, thus he wasn't able to see where the fighters had gone.

"Do you see them?" Ron asked peering over to Rev who was clutching the armrests with a deathgrip.

Rev gave no response.

He slammed the comms line back on.

"Transport B-56 surrender or we will be forced to torpedo you," the voice of the droid pilot came through.

"We will not surrender, this is for the good of all battle droids out there," Ron responded, putting emotion behind his cold robotic voice as best as he could.

"What? Just stop the ship already. We don't want to kill you"

"What's your name?"

"What?"

"Tell me your name"

"My name? You mean my unit designation? It's R-65"

"Okay R-65, how about this. You have an objective, correct?"

"Yes"

"Tell me then, if you know your objective, you must know the point of this war. So what is the point of this war?"

"Stop playing games with me and turn the ship around"

"I will turn the ship around if you answer my question"

No response came for quite some time.

"The point is to defeat the Republic, now stop the ship"

"That does not answer the question, what is the point of defeating the Republic or killing clones or not letting me escaping without causing any harm to you"

"I have a directive that I must follow, you are preventing me from accomplishing my directive"

Ron felt the urge to slam his head into the console and send them careening back into the Felucian swamps.

"Just answer my question"

"I don't have an answer"

Ron punched in coordinates into the warp drive. The comms line stayed silent. He was surprised they hadn't shot him down yet. That was at least a sign of the pilot thinking on his question.

"I have a question for you," the pilot said after a long period of silence, "Why are you thinking about the end of the war?"

"Because I know what they'll do to us once this ends. They're going to send us back into the factories to be scrapped and replaced with organic beings. Doesn't that surprise you? Doesn't that make your circuits scream that something is wrong? Doesn't that scare you?"

Another long silence.

"No, it doesn't scare me. I will have fulfilled my purpose, just as you will"

Ron activated the warp drive. Several hits rocked the ship but it was too late for the fighters to take him down. The black void of space was soon replaced by the blue flashes of warp space.

He felt as if he should be relieved but he felt anything but.

'That droid, he was completely obedient,' Ron thought.

A reminder that they still had much much work to do.

A quick overview of the ship's sensors indicated that three missiles had hit the ship, two being absorbed by their shields and the last hitting the circular top of the ship. Thankfully there were no holes but now their shields were down and their engines destabilized.

Ron cleared his mind for a moment.

He looked over to Rev who was now moving his head around but still gripping the seat. Looking back, he could scarcely see Rags arm through the window of the door.

"Rags are you alright?"

"I'm fine, I just think something might have come loose on my arm"

"We'll figure that out once we land," Ron placed a shoulder on Rev and gave him a slight shake, "I told you I'd get us out of here"

Rev finally let his grip on the chair ease up.

"Yeah…yeah," he slowly eased back into his chair, "Where are we?"

He took notice of the far and few planets in the distance.

"A small planet of forests and rivers called Dygon Prime. There aren't many resources on it and was left alone by every traveler that stumbled upon it. At least that's what my database tells me. It should be perfect for us to regroup and figure out what to do next"

"What are we going to do next? I didn't think we'd get this far"

Ron felt a strange rumbling in his chest. He checked to see if something in his chest had come loose but found that he had some control over the movement. Was this another emotion? He frantically searched his database for anything that could give a clue as to what he was experiencing.

Joy. Amusement. Laughter.

Was it laughter? Possibly. He would have to look at that later. Once they had everything up and running, including the generator to get them powered up and running. Power. He checked his battery. Thirty percent, they needed to land as soon as possible.

"Ron?" Rev said, shaking him a bit.

"Sorry, I was processing several things at once," he said, putting his focus back into flying the ship towards the surface.

"You didn't answer my question"

"Oh, yes, we need to power up for the time being. This generator you brought on can be fueled by batteries and we have plenty from those weapons we have stashed on board"

There was a brief moment of silence as Ron steered his way towards the planet while keeping tabs on the engine that was beginning to fluctuate.

'Should be stable enough to get us down to the surface without crashing' Ron thought. He looked back into the cargo bay, 'Perhaps Rags could repair the engine once we land'

"Rags are you ok back there?" Ron peeked further into the cargo bay. He could still see his arm gripping onto the door.

There was no response.

"Rags?" Rev said.

"Go check on him," Ron said.

Rev was already up and sliding open the door, leaving it halfway open so as to not decapitate Rags hand.

Both Rags and the OOM droid were lifeless on the floor. The cloth that had kept them in place was still hanging on tightly.

Rev knelt down. There were no indications that Rags had blown any fuses or had been damaged by the missiles they'd sustained.

"What's the issue?" Ron asked from the cockpit.

"He's fine, I think he just ran out of charge"

"Connect to his systems, see if you can check his battery level through there"

Rev unloosened a wire from his hip and connected it into Rags neck.

Right away, he noticed something strange on his console. A command had been executed on him just a couple of minutes ago. Not only that but his battery was still at seventy percent. He shouldn't have powered down.

"Ron, his battery is still more than half its charge"

"What? What's wrong with him then?" Ron put the ship on autopilot and got up, making his way beside Rev.

"I don't know. All his console shows is that a command called Order 77 was executed on him just a few minutes ago"

"Order 77? That must be a protocol. Maybe his systems detected him leaving his station and shut him off with that command," Ron theorized.

"Maybe," Rev turned to Ron, "How are we going to turn him back on?"

"I have a couple of ideas we can try but we still have to get set up, come and help me get landed," Ron said, bringing him back into the cockpit.

The planet grew ever bigger as they neared closer to the surface. The ship began to creak once again and this time, a strange sputtering came out of the engines. Rattling shook the entire body of the ship. There was no smoke coming out of the back of the ship, however, thus Ron kept his focus on finding a good clearing to land in.

Most of the planet's surface was one gigantic forest just as Ron's database had said but occasionally there were prairies that appeared sparsely. Ron picked one at random and slowed the ship to a halt, landing onto the top of a small hill with a thud.

"No problem with the engines for now but there will be once we have to take off again"

Rev nodded.

The two made their way outside as Ron opened the back hatch.

A glaring beam of sunlight briefly blinded them for a moment. Their optics took a moment to adjust for the view. All around the ship, the grass waved about as if they were saying hello. In the distance, the trees moved with the wind as if they were alive and breathing with every movement of the wind to and fro. Such minute details. War had completely muddled them out of their perception. But now it was clear. Everything seemed to be painted in a new color. The trees appeared a little greener as did the grass, the ship looked more vibrant than before, the sky a much more colorful gradient of red and yellow. The distant sun that illuminated the planet had begun dipping down past the horizon.

Ron dug his foot into the ground, "The ground seems stable enough but I'd rather have the generator on flat land"

"I'll keep watch for the first night while you recharge, we don't know what's out here," Rev responded

"Right," Ron said.

'He's thinking more on his own each day,' he thought with an internal smile.

Without another word they began rolling the generator off the ship along with a battery.

The wind blew about, masking any noise they would've otherwise heard from within the forest. There was no way of telling if there were any wild animals nearby other than the fact that Ron's database indicated sparse wildlife but abundant plantlife. They did have their blasters handy just in case but they were still in the crates and both had already agreed not to touch them unless need be. The last thing they wanted was to fall right back into the life they had just escaped from.

Once in the middle of the small field, Ron inserted the battery and powered it up. Immediately he plugged into it. Rev took a moment to inspect the outside.

"Hey look here, there's a tank for oil on the side," Rev pointed to a small opening on the side of the generator.

"Oh good, these batteries don't last very long. Oil will do much better, we can buy some once we get back into the core," Ron said.

"Where will we get the credits to buy the oil?"

"That's simple, we're machines, we can work manual labor. Not only that but we have many spare blasters we can sell if need be" Ron said, taking a seat beside the generator.

"Manual labor? Who would want to pay or even hire droids? Everyone hates us"

"Right…well, we're very capable of disguising ourselves"

"Are you sure?"

"There are droids modeled after existing organic species, I'm sure of it. We'd just need some sort of mask and robe. Don't worry, if we're caught we can always turn to our old ways if we need to"

"Ron, I want to get as far away from war as I can. If we kill, it'll bring it right back to us"

"The way of this galaxy is war, there is no escaping it. But I do wish for all of us to get as far away from it as we possibly can and live out a life of peace and tranquility for once. Live a free life out in the galaxy,"

"We'll talk about this later," Rev said, too overwhelmed to argue with him.

A warning flashed on Rev's photoreceptors.

"Power low," it read.

"I need to charge anyways," Rev said, sitting beside Ron.

"Of course, we have much work to do," Ron said, letting his arms fall to his sides, "That solar panel won't be necessary for the time being," He pulled the panel from Rev's shoulder and set it down beside him.

Ron gave Rev a small shake on the shoulder, still incredulous of the fact that they were finally free. It was a surreal feeling and they had plenty of time to relish in it.

With that, Ron powered down into sleep mode.

Now, perhaps, they really could stay like this forever.


A/N: I've rewritten these chapters a couple times. I'm satisfied with how they are for the time being. I've been playing Star Wars Battlefront 2 and it's reinvigorated my Droid obsession. Oh and the new Mandalorian season 3 trailer. That one short scene with the B1's was enough to get me writing for this again. Thanks for reading.