Silver's head was infested with tendrils.
His army was stood around him, all facing towards him.
"This could be our final fight together. Do your best. We will take up a new strategy. We will begin the fight in here, and push them back out as best we can before falling back to here. This should increase the causality rate for the enemy," Silver stood up from his chair, he was forced to press more weight into his toes to prevent himself from falling back, "I am proud of all of you. I know without a doubt, you will perform at maximum efficiency"
The droids stirred. Warhead held his shield as usual, and Scraps, the other. Auto was stood as tall as Silver along with Jet beside him, his blaster held firmly in his hands. Gears stood at attention thinking that it was the greatest form of respect he could show Silver. Spider had his hooks already equipped, his blaster carefully placed between them. Terra was covered in dust and dirt as usual but he kept a spot of shine on the lower half of his head and the top half of his abdomen out of respect for Silver.
Deadeye was beside Silver, his attention fully on him.
"Take up your positions, I am reading movement outside," Silver said.
The group moved out.
Silver switched his view to the cameras. A dust storm was in full force outside, rapping against the cameras exterior and almost completely obscuring the view.
'Odd choice of day to make their final attack but no matter,' Silver thought.
On the eastern sector, a small group of...something moved in on their position.
Out of the wall of dust, skeletal bodies walked into view.
Silver had to refresh the camera, he couldn't believe it.
'More droids?'
He zoomed in on them.
It was a group of B1s, huddled together. Each of them had their hand on the droid in front of them to prevent the storm from pulling them apart.
Their bodies were heavily scratched, some of them were painted in green and brown camouflage.
'This is a trap. It must be. The Empire is tricking us'
They reached the foot of the base, he could hear them talk. They were using the same frequencies as his own unit.
"Get your blasters ready, I'm detecting signals inside," One said.
'That must be their squad commander,' Silver watched with great curiosity.
If this was an Imperial trap, it was working.
They ventured deeper inside, eventually reaching the foot of the first security gate.
"There's still power," Another of the droids said.
"Somebody might be here, stay alert," The leader replied.
"It could be a backup generator, I remember something about a fusion generator from my time here on Geonosis"
"Let's play it safe"
"Agreed"
One droid stayed at the back covering their rear.
'These aren't the usual B1s. They must be reprogrammed, but did the Imperials reprogram them or someone else?'
The droids continued forward, their formation flowed smoothly. It was like watching the clones all over again. Their movement was not at all stiff, though it was predictable.
Eventually they stopped right after passing the second security gate.
Right into Silver's own trap.
"Hold here, I will run an intensive scan," The leading droid said.
Silver could feel the spurts of static hitting his own body and of the receiver as well.
"Was there anything?" Another droid said.
"Nothing, only those same signals from before...very interesting, they use a frequency similar to ours but it isn't Confederacy-coded either"
"Halt, put your weapons down. You're surrounded," Silver's voice came from above.
The second metal gate slammed shut behind them.
Deadeye's unit leapt up from ahead, over the dividing wall.
Warhead held his shield out in front of him with his blaster at it's side.
Auto's unit came from behind, they ran out from the security corridors out to the droid's sides.
"More B1s? I thought we were the only ones," One of the foreign B1s said.
Deadeye dropped his weapon back down to his waist, "Silver, the intruders, they're-"
"I know, bring them up. Nobody shoot," Silver replied.
"Roger," Deadeye replied. He walked up to the leading droid, "Follow me, it's good to see another battle droid for once"
"It is," The leader said, staring at his exposed photo-receptor.
Deadeye led them into the control room.
Warhead and the others stared at them the entire way but refrained from saying anything.
They couldn't trust them, they were outsiders even if they were battle droids.
"I see why they call you silver," The leader said as they came upon the control room.
"Deadeye was the one who came up with the name," Silver said pointing to Deadeye to his right.
"How did you all manage to survive?" The leader said.
"That's a long story, and I doubt you're here to hear it," Silver stood, his hands easing towards his back. Deadeye readied his finger on the trigger.
"I would like to one day, but we don't have the time. The Imperials have a heavy presence on this planet. We need to leave, now"
"Leave?" Silver stepped closer to him, "And where would we go? Right back to the Imperial's base where you came from?"
"What? No, no," The leading B1's head swiveled, glancing to Deadeye and Warhead, "You're misunderstanding me. We aren't here to kill you. I'll be brief," He focused again on Silver, "My name is Ron. We are building a sanctuary for battle droids like yourself. The Confederacy is gone, the Empire is destroying our brothers but we can band together, prevent them from destroying us. We are building a defense force. We have an entire planet to ourselves-"
"An entire planet?" Deadeye said, his grip loosening on his blaster.
"Don't listen to him," Silver replied, "How can I trust you?"
"I can show you pictures," Ron set up a comm-line between himself and Silver. He sent photos he'd taken of their planet and base.
Silver analyzed them for any signs of tampering or Imperial troops in the pictures, but there was none.
"...you aren't lying, and there's more of you," Silver looked at Deadeye, gauging his reaction.
He stared back at him.
"We have the same goals, the same freedom in mind. Please, come with us. I wish to save as many of our brothers as possible. It would be a shame to leave you all here. This planet is under complete Imperial control, you'll be killed if you stay here," Ron extended a hand out to Silver.
Silver's hand seemed to move on it's own. He fought back.
'This is another chance at life, before the Empire comes to destroy us once and for all. Either way, if this is a trap, we can still do more damage to them if we take the bait,' Silver looked back at the computers around him.
Ron took notice, "We have our own computers set up at our base, you can use those. We'll only let you use them if that's what you'd like"
Silver moved forward, pulling the cables from his head while taking Ron's hand. There was no reason to stay, they would be killed if they did, "I hope you aren't lying"
"I assure you, I'm not"
Silver looked to his army, "Everyone, gather all the equipment that you can. Take your weapons, batteries, whatever you can carry. It's better that we leave rather than stay"
An hour later, Warhead was carrying a pile of batteries on the back of his shield that was strapped to his back. Everyone else had taken either only their blasters or pieces of scrap metal.
The dust whipped at their metal chassis, chewing through pieces of it like minuscule piranhas.
As he grabbed at Ron's shoulder, he glanced back at their base. It had served them time and time again. It almost felt like a home, like another member of his army.
Deadeye took notice, "You aren't thinking of going back already, are you?"
Silver returned his focus to the front, "No, not at all"
A/N: This ending ties into my other droid story: The Art of Brotherhood. If you want to see more of Silver he's in the later half of that story but he turns into a background character. I wrote that story before this one too so there's a few inconsistencies that I have to work out. I need to edit the entire thing anyways, it's got some major issues that are gonna need a bit of work. Also it's super long and I wrote it with zero planning beforehand so it's messy. I'm not proud of it as it is but I am planning on improving it before I start writing the sequel so I'd recommend you hold off on reading that one for now. I've got three more droid stories coming out before I start editing that story, dunno when the next one will come out but I'm working on it. I would say this is my best droid story thus far, I like how it turned out (even though I missed grammar errors on almost every single chapter even after editing them twice, sorry about that). Alright that's all I've got to say, thanks for reading.
