Ron swiped away at the vines growing over R-G2's grave.
'That's twice now,' He thought.
Rev threw out a bundle of dead grass and roots further out into the wilderness. He stood, swiping away the greenery stuck on his body. His joints no longer made as much noise as his old body. Only a feint hiss that was barely perceptible.
"All done," Rev reported. He grabbed his cloth and vibroblade.
Ron patted the top of R-G2's grave.
"I really do wish he could see all of this," Ron said, turning back towards the headquarters.
All of the droids that had been rescued from Boleria were fully reprogrammed but without their new armor. They had finally run out of titanium. The amount of credits they'd gained from selling what remained was enough to sustain all seventy one of them for a very long time.
Their new squad-mates had spent the first month on R-G2 being reprogrammed. The rest of the year they became acquainted with the rest of the crew while undergoing training from Dornan and OOM.
R-4V now had a full crew of like-minded droids aiding with his projects. His main project being finding ways to create backups of their personality core throughout their entire body in a desperate attempt to cheat death. Meanwhile, C-5B, C-6C, and C-37 were ordered to create modular arm-blasters for their new bodies, much like the wrist blaster of the B2s. Naturally, C-5B and C-6C began work on a flamethrower arm while C-37 worked on creating a wrist rocket for their model.
Ron and Rev walked up to the trees that R-G2 and his squadron had planted. They were fully grown now thanks to Johnny's help. The base was fully covered from above, shielding them from any rogue ships that might pass through the area.
"They all know about him and his team. I'm sure he would've appreciated that, at the very least," Rev said, his photo-receptors focusing on one of the squadrons they'd rescued from Boleria. They passed through the outskirts of the sanctuary, their pale colored chassis stuck out through the green of the forest like a lantern in the dark. The group passed by R-G2 and his squadron's grave, each of them laid a hand on each of the metal signs before moving on.
"He would've served well as another officer," Ron replied.
The fields of dirt that had once surrounded the buildings of the sanctuary were now filled with grass and carefully planned dug-out valleys to guide the rain that poured down elsewhere. Johnny's expertise on irrigation systems had been a great boon.
"We were lucky to have found you when we did," Ron remarked the day after he'd finished completing the system.
Johnny shifted in place, his shovel still in hand, "You know, the organics who saved me said that too…" His photo-receptors looked to the ground. A gust of wind passed through, Johnny shifted his body weight to flow with it as he looked back up to Ron, "I guess I'm right where I need to be"
Ron made a note not to mention anything regarding his past.
Johnny strutted in from the northwest, guiding a small transport bike behind him. He'd chosen to go with a brown and black coloring for his new chassis, saying something about matching his old clothes which he still wore everyday. Thomas walked by his side with a container filled with colorful fruits. His blue and gray paint had been redone with the buckets of leftover paint they'd left lying around in the storage unit.
Rev approached him, "Looks like you had a good harvest this time around"
"We did. You two should come see the fields one of these days," Johnny replied, stopping the bike in its tracks.
"We'll plan a day for it after we come back. Good luck at the market," Rev said, waving them along.
"Thanks, and good luck with the expedition" Johnny said, continuing forward.
Ron shifted his feet through the grass stalks below until they came to the foot of the workshop. It had been expanded from a small narrow corridor of four workbenches to a spacious square filled with dozens of benches and various tools. The barracks had also been expanded to match the number of new B1s they'd rescued. Somewhere behind the barracks, the faint clanging of vibroswords echoed through the forest.
R-4V was stationed at the very front of the workshop, his work area overlooked the rest of the building. The walls had been painted silver to cover up the new ventilation system that he'd personally installed.
"R-4V," Ron called out among-st the chaos of hissing blowtorches and clattering metal.
R-4V looked up from his bench, Rags looked with him.
"Yes?" He said, his hands continuing to work on a bundle of wires outstretched from a circuit board.
"We're leaving soon. Make sure to send out one of your teams on patrol with OOM's squadrons," Ron reminded him.
R-4V slapped a metal hand to his face with a loud clang, "I'd almost forgotten. I will send C-5B and C-6C. They're finishing up on their weapon arm"
Rags pulled at R-4V's head to look at the wires in his hands which were now smoking. He swatted away the smoke cloud and smothered the growing fire with his hands, "I will send out the orders soon, but as you can see I am busy"
"I will...leave you to it," Ron said, his photo-receptors lingering on the ruined mess of wires.
They passed by the barracks. It extended further into the forest and was regularly used by at least one squadron most of the time. The squad they'd recovered from Akiva were currently recharging while cleaning their blasters on one of the several tables in the middle of the building.
Silver paced the outside of the research center, the bundle of wires on his head pulled at him to get back inside. His building had remained the same just like his squadron. More droids perused the computers held inside, however. Most of them were unofficially assigned their own positions within the center to aid in Silver's research and projects.
"Silver, I am sure you will hold the line here but please do remind R-4V to send out one squadron for patrol and scrap recovery," Ron said.
"I've already scheduled one reminder for tomorrow," Silver said, stopping his pacing to face Ron and Rev.
"What's wrong? You keep moving back in forth in place," Rev commented.
"Nothing's wrong. I'm just thinking," Silver said, continuing his pacing, "This helps me, makes sure the cables don't get pinched. I'm almost done creating that new tactician protocol OOM has been pestering me about for the last month"
"Pestering?" OOM said over the radio.
"Stop listening over the com-link!" Silver shouted, cutting the line.
"I am excited to see what you have created. Carry on," Ron said, turning around back towards the north, where the mountains continued to face down on them. The distant whirring of the drills were gone.
The fields of trees ahead of the old mine was filled with crowds of B1s from Boleria.
He took one step forward before OOM stopped him.
"Leaving?" OOM asked, his armor colored with the same red markings on his shoulder and lower abdomen as before. The rest of his body was colored in the green and brown spots of a woodland camo.
"Yes, we'll maintain contact as promised," Ron replied, pulling away from his hand still pushing against his chest. He moved to step around him.
OOM stepped in front of him again, "Oh we will," he held out a piece of a blaster in his hands, "Because I'm going with you"
Ron took the barrel into his hands. His photo-receptors recognized it. He drew his blaster pistol and fitted the barrel to the end, turning it into a rifle, "Is this supposed to be some sort of bribe?"
Rev held out his own hand cradling a much longer barrel along with a scope, "No, it's just a gift from us"
Ron head whipped around to Rev at his side, "You too? But why a gift?"
"For freeing us all," Rev pulled him closer, their shoulders clanging together, "I didn't think I'd ever live this long, but here I am and it's thanks to you"
"It pains me to admit this but I would not have been able to create and test new tactics if it were not for your intervention back on Felucia. This is all your doing, and I am...jealous of that," OOM continued.
Ron didn't have to look at the warning messages popping up on his console to know his CPU was rapidly rising in temperature.
"Oh, I-I am very grateful for all of this…" Ron brought the barrels and scope close to his chest. He looked between them, "I did what I believed was right. That is all"
OOM came to Ron's side and wrapped an arm around him, mimicking Rev. They marched forward in unison, "You achieved what you sought out to do, a feat that would've been unimaginable to my old self. And now, we have the means to continue surviving for a very long time. All of this is your doing, you should be proud of that"
C-05, along with R-7B and R-23E approached them from the front of the crowd of droids.
"Systems and weapons check has been concluded. Everyone is ready to go," C-05 reported.
C-5B, C-6C, and C-37 came in from the flank. They pulled along another transport bike carrying a set of charging pods and extra batteries.
"Are we really going to have to carry this the entire time?" C-37 complained, "I don't want to wear out my new joints so quickly"
"You will switch out with other squadrons. Now stop complaining, we must all do our duties," OOM said, his vocalizer so close to Ron's ear he could hear the white static that formed at the beginning and end of each of his sentences.
C-6C let go of the speeder bike and approached Ron, displaying his new flamethrower-arm. The barrel was peppered with holes. A wire fed into the arm with a fuel source at the bottom, "It's all finished. Once we find another source of credits, we can start mass producing them"
"Great work…" Ron muttered. He looked at the crew around him. Each of them marked with unique scratches on their heads and spots of paint on their lower neck. The rest of their bodies were painted with woodland camo for the expedition.
They continued to speak about supplies but his audio-receptors tuned out the noise. He looked back to the sanctuary, Silver was still pacing at the front of the research center, Johnny and Thomas were beginning to load their fruits onto their freighter, and B-35's prominent stomping echoed through the forest as he led the patrols on the outskirts of the sanctuary. He spotted the striped head of D-43 at the southern tip of the sanctuary, rummaging through his metal briefcase in front of the fighter with R-56V close to his side.
It hadn't been until the initial building of the sanctuary that he'd truly stopped to think about everything that had happened since the end of the war. He'd talked about how many he'd saved after bringing Silver and his team along with Rev. It had only recently dawned on him just how many he'd rescued.
He no longer needed to switch to sleep mode to enter the dream he'd sought out long ago on Naboo. Instead, he woke up to it.
His photo-receptors wandered to Rev, his head retaining the many scratches he'd earned over the years. He felt the gaze of the crowd of droids in front of them, awaiting his orders.
The future was uncertain, but with the might of so many battle droids, he didn't have much to worry about. If they were to survive for a hundred more years, he would be ecstatic. If they were all to die in one last glorious battle, he would die in peace. Because at the very least, they would fight to the very end as brothers in arms.
A/N: Gonna try and keep things short. So I am planning on making a sequel after I finish with everything else. Frankly I need time to come up with more ideas for it. I will be editing this story after a short break (two weeks, I think), and during that time I'll be working on the short stories. I have no idea when they'll come out but it should be within the next couple of months. The first will be Johnny Roger, I already wrote the first two chapters a long time ago but recently edited both so I'll release them in conjunction with the ending of this story. Thank you to all the readers that stuck with me to the very end. I greatly appreciate all the recent reviews, they make my day. This is my first ever long-form fanfiction that I've ever written, hell it's my first novel-length story at all so naturally it was messy and all over the place. I'm hoping with all the edits this story's gonna undergo, it'll be much better in the end. Like I said before, this is really just the first draft with lots of typos and whatnot. Also, I forgot to mention that the new bodies of the droids were inspired by a piece of fanart on Deviantart. It's called 'upgraded B1 battle droid' by blazbaros. Gotta give credit to him. Thank you all very much for reading, I hope you all enjoyed this story. If not then thanks for at least giving it a chance.