Chatter from the Imperials came in every now and again, filling the static silence of the radio with brief exchanges of orders and unit movement. Silver logged every one of them, hoping to extract vital information from their cryptic conversations.
Approximately two days and four hours after the previous attack, the Imperial officers spoke up. It was brief but told him enough. They were pausing the operation for the time being, there were more pressing matters concerning the Death Star. The next attack wouldn't come for awhile.
Silver sagged into his chair, moving his legs forward and back. His joints sighed in relief.
How long had it been since he moved from this position? Two days? Maybe four?
'Internal memory files say that it has been five days since I plugged into the computers,' Silver thought. He was almost tempted to yank the cables from his head and go back to normal, to a much less draining state of existence. But he had a duty to fulfill. He was sworn to his units and they to him. It would be selfish to care more for his own being than to his whole army. He sat up, intermittently checking the cameras.
The others were sat within the barracks, recharging, cleaning their weapons, or recovering from their wounds. Gears still stuttered when he spoke, a result of his overheating. Silver had said it would go away in a few days.
Deadeye wandered the facility with Spider. They rummaged through trash bins and binders full of folders and documents in the receiver room. Warhead was stood by the terminal at the security gate, leaned up against the wall with his shield clutched close to his side. It stood as a memory of his kill and he displayed it proudly. It had been his first close quarters encounter with the enemy. An elite enemy, at that.
'He'll never want to part with it again,' Silver thought.
The other shield recovered from the bodies outside had gone into the barracks for use by anyone. The clone's armor was recovered as well, he still didn't know what to do with it. They could cover their own bodies with it for extra protection or use the plastoid for other upgrades for each of his units. It was a tough choice. He'd been hoping the turret they recovered could've been repaired but it was no use. The barrel was melted off, and so he had it scrapped, the parts would be most useful for upgrades to their blasters. Then came the clone's blasters. They were the standard issue DC-15s all clones were equipped with.
'A few can serve as our backup weapons. For the rest, their components will be useful, including the gas canisters. I will begin upgrading all of their blasters immediately,' he thought.
The only thing left to deal with from their previous attack were the bodies. They were currently piled into a stack at the entrance.
'Those things will start rotting anytime soon,' Silver thought, his CPU already forming an idea for their disposal, 'We should put them outside with the Geonosian to warn the intruders of the fate that awaits them'
He studied the others. They were restless, marching back and forth across the small base, hungry for battle. He could feel it thrumming in the air, like the pulsing red lights that occupied the security hall, it was constant and menacing.
'This should give me enough time to begin the improvements,' Silver tapped a finger against his bony knee, "All units, the Imperials will not be returning anytime soon. Clean out the entrance including the loose steel from the machinery. Those bodies also have to be thrown out on the eastern perimeter outside. Move out, I will open the gates"
Deadeye and Spider left the receiver room in an instant, leaving their findings in a neatly stacked pile.
The others marched to the front from the barracks. Warhead was already at the gate. Gears was the first to arrive.
Warhead patted the side of his shield, "What else do you think I could put on it?"
Gears looked it up and down. The metal on the front had distorted and bubbled in some places thanks to the beating it had taken a few days earlier.
"I-I don't know. Maybe stick s-something to the front," Gears replied, he glanced up to his head, "Maybe s-spikes," He said pointing at the spikes protruding from him.
Warhead reached up, tapping his finger against one end of the sharp distorted metal, "So I can bash the enemy, that's a good idea. I will use some of the metal we find out there"
R-BV5 came up behind him with Scraps and Auto in tow, "I could help, if you'd like. I've always wanted to customize my weapons, yours would be a good test"
"Sure, I don't even know how I'd stick spikes onto it," Warhead said.
The gates opened. The second struggled, creaking all the way.
'I'll have to figure that out on my own,' Silver thought, "No hostiles detected in the vicinity. Work efficiently, I would rather have you all in here than out there"
The droids marched out shoulder-to-shoulder across the entire hall.
Warhead gathered the loose steel in piles onto the back end of his shield. Scraps threw his share onto it.
"Do you think I could use some of this for my own body?" Scraps asked. He pointed at his abdomen, a mismatch of a dark and light shade of red.
Warhead looked him up and down, "You were activated only recently, right?"
"Affirmative," Scraps replied, he fidgeted with a piece of steel in his hands to distract him from the unease his question brought.
Warhead grabbed his shield filled with steel at both ends and heaved it up, bracing it against his hips, "Take what you need, but leave most of it. Silver has the final say of what we're to do with it"
"Thank you," Scraps said, scooping up more of the steel and gears into his hands.
Deadeye and Gears lifted the first of the bodies stacked into a pyramid near the entrance.
Deadeye eyed the squishy flesh of the clone as he grabbed the body from the arms and threw it over his shoulders. His legs bounced with the weight, "They all look the same"
Gears nodded, "Yeah, j-just like-"
"Negative, not like us," Auto said from behind him, dragging two bodies by their feet, "They are inferior to us. That is why we are alive and they are dead"
"But you were almost k-killed by them," Gears said, walking towards the entrance with Deadeye.
Auto continued to drag his share of bodies behind them, "That was a miscalculation on my end, and you did no better"
"You like to stick to protocol, right?" Spider said from behind him.
They had formed a line to the outside.
"Yes, although Silver has...readjusted my view of this. Maybe it is fine to go outside of it once in awhile," Auto said.
"Once in awhile? I'm ready to never touch it again," Spider said, "I want to keep climbing, higher and higher, until all of you are the size of a pebble on the ground"
"Your programming is….never-mind" Auto said, shaking his head.
"I-is what?" Gears asked, glancing over at him.
"Nothing. I forget, all of us have been re-programmed by Silver. His protocol is not the Confederacy's doing, but it is sufficient, maybe even superior. Further data is required"
"No data is required, we know he is a good leader already," Deadeye replied. They passed into the stairs of the entrance. They took it one step at a time with the weight of the bodies on their back. Auto carried two by the legs, "And I don't think firing a weapon as quick as you did is standard protocol, or is it?"
"There is no protocol standardizing the rate of fire at which a B1 unit can fire an E-5, no" Auto said. Refraining from saying anything else. He wouldn't dare risk saying anything out of line.
"Interesting…" Deadeye said.
The fleshy bodies flopped onto the ground with clouds of red dust shooting up into the air as if the planet was coughing at the stench of rotting flesh.
Deadeye looked up, his upgraded eye seeing every minute detail of the never ending landscape of plateaus and buttes and all sorts of other natural rock formations. There was another pair of rock spires close-by to the west. They were lined up almost perfectly were it not for a small valley that had formed in between them. Past the entrance on the opposite end was a towering plateau that blocked them off from the north.
"What's wrong? Do you see the enemy?" R-BV5 asked from behind him.
"No, I'm just surveying the area. We know the inside of the base, but not so much the outside," Deadeye replied.
"Understood," R-BV5 replied.
Deadeye stood tall, letting the dust whip against his chassis, filling his joints with small particles that he would inevitably have to clear in a few months time, if they were still alive by then. He moved his fingers around, grasping at the wisps of wind that would flow through them. There was still a small pit of fear that formed somewhere deep within his metal chassis from being out in the open and in the light of all things, but he could take control of it like an air bubble trapped inside his body.
"Sir, are you alright?" R-BV5 said, still stood a few feet behind him.
"I'm fine. Go back and continue stacking the bodies out here," Deadeye commanded.
"Roger"
Deadeye heightened his hearing. He could still hear the whistling of the wind whispering in his audio-receptors, but no crunching of rocks from metal feet.
Reluctantly, he turned to R-BV5, still stood staring at him.
"Are you sure you want to be alone out here? In the open? The enemy could see you. It's not safe for us B1s to be alone" R-BV5 asked, his head tilting to one side.
"I know. I'm not a standard B1. I'm an assassin model. I'm just trying to get used to being out here. I don't want to be afraid of the light anymore," Deadeye replied.
"You're afraid of the light? Why?" R-BV5's head shot up, "Oh, sorry. That was not a very logical question"
Deadeye's shoulders sagged forward. If he had lungs, he would've sighed. Instead, he let out a warble of static from his vocalizer.
"Follow me, let's get this job done. Silver said to be efficient," Deadeye said pulling him by the shoulder.
"That's right. I am calculating the most optimized form of completing this task," R-BV5 replied.
His voice was different from the others. It was slightly higher-pitched, the silence between his words filled with more static. It was more robotic like Silver's, sounding like a computer hastily crunching words together, not caring much for the little imperfections in between words.
"You don't seem to be a standard model either," Deadeye commented.
They crossed back into the cave, the darkness swallowing them whole. Deadeye felt as if he'd dove underwater, his whole body floated.
"I am a standard model but I was designed for engineering purposes. Or at least that is what my previous directive specified," R-BV5 replied.
Gears, Auto, and Spider passed them with another set of bodies over their shoulders.
"Interesting, I think you could help Silver with our armor upgrades," Deadeye said, throwing another dead clone over one shoulder.
"Really? I-well, I don't know if he'd like that. He has all the power of those computers with him. I am just a standard model, he is...something else," R-BV5 followed Deadeye out with another body.
"He had me help him when we were first powering you all on. I'll ask him, you can be of use to him I'm sure of it," Deadeye replied.
"I would like that," R-BV5 said.
The others passed them again.
"Hey Auto, what's the protocol for getting rid of bodies?" Spider asked.
Auto glanced behind his shoulder, "Protocol says to use them as fuel through burning or other methods"
"Really?" Spider said.
"That d-does sound resourceful," Gears commented.
"It is, but Silver must have good reason for us to put them outside. I do not think we have any issues with power or fuel and the bodies do rot after some time," Auto said.
"Why are you so critical of our c-commander?" Gears said, genuine curiosity lining his voice.
"He does not follow protocol. I criticize anyone who does so," Auto replied, "He is the only droid in memory that has not died immediately after failing to follow it. Thus, I believe his version of Confederate protocols could possibly be superior but I must assess his performance"
"And are you an OOM model, a commander like Silver?" Spider questioned.
They went outside for the third time. Deadeye and R-BV5 were stood staring out into the wild expanses of Geonosis.
"Negative," Auto said.
"Then why do you act like you know how to command?" Spider continued.
"I do not. I am a soldier, I am only worried about the competence of our commander and so far he is proving to be superior to previous leaders"
"You're still talking about that?" Deadeye said, turning around to face Auto head on. White static threatened to overpower his own voice, "Stop bothering to think about Silver and do your job. He knows what he's doing, trust me. If you'd had the tactical droid who commanded me before this, you wouldn't be talking right now"
"I apologize sir. It is something with my programming," Auto said. He inched away from Deadeye, they were only a foot apart.
Deadeye stuck his long head out towards him, "The Confederacy isn't here, only Silver and he will be the one to guide us to victory not any of those stupid tactical droids or organic officers"
Auto nodded, refraining from saying anything else that might add fuel to his fire.
R-BV5 hurried past him, not wanting to incur his wrath, but in his rush he never noticed the long piece of metal sticking out of the ground that sent him tumbling face-first into the sea of red below.
"Whoops," R-BV5 said, sitting upright. He swiped away the red dust that had powdered him whole. A glint of red-stained metal caught his eye, "Hey, what's this?" he said, drawing Deadeye's attention.
The others followed him, forming a circle around the piece of metal that jutted out from the dirt below.
"Metal? It could be a weapon. Help me dig it up," Deadeye said, crouching down. He slammed his sharp fingers into the ground and began pulling up chunks of dirt. The others wordlessly copied him.
Eventually they dug up enough to reveal the head of a B1 battle droid buried deep into the ground.
"How did he get all the way down there?" Spider questioned.
"I don't know, let's just get him out," Deadeye said.
By the time they'd dug out the rest of his body, the sun had risen high into the sky casting it's terrible heat down directly onto the droids. They carried the stray droid back inside in a rush.
Warhead and Scraps were marching towards the entrance to help dispose of the rest of the bodies. They stopped in their tracks upon seeing the others rush in with the new droid.
"Who's that?" Warhead asked.
"We found him outside. We'll get him to Silver, you two keep throwing out the bodies," Deadeye commanded.
They carried the droid into the control room past the pile of scrap Warhead and Scraps had created near the entrance.
Deadeye motioned for the others to let go of the body, "Silver, we-"
"Yes, yes, I know. You found another B1," Silver pointed over to the computer that had once been his work area, "Plug him in, I'll start his reprogramming immediately"
Deadeye clicked the cables into the droid's ports on his side.
"You found him in the ground, thus, his name will be Terra. It's the human word for dirt, I believe," Silver announced. He finally tore his gaze away from the pile of DC-15 blasters he was disassembling, and looked at Gears and Auto, "The rest of you, get back out there and continue throwing out the bodies. Spider, stay here"
Deadeye, Gears, R-BV5, and Auto marched out back into the entrance.
"Warhead, return to the control room," Silver commanded.
A few moments later, Warhead strode into the room, with his shield still in hand.
"I have been assessing your performance on the battlefield and have come up with upgrades for you both," Silver turned, and grabbed hold of a handful of triangular scraps of metal sharpened at their ends, "For you Warhead, I will weld these spikes onto your hands so you can melee the enemy. They should be sharp enough to strike through armor," he kicked a chair to his side, "Sit, I will attach them to you in a moment"
Warhead practically sprinted to his side, "Thank you, Silver"
Silver turned to Spider next, "And for you Spider, I've created these," He grabbed a pair of wristbands with hooks extending from their base. He beckoned Spider forward and attached each hook onto his wrists with a series of clicks, "These should help you climb. I have also created spikes for your feet," he procured the giant spikes. Two crudely made latches extended from the tail ends of them.
"Thank you, I will always serve you, Silver" Spider promised, examining the hooks from every angle under the artificial lights casting down on him.
"I know," Silver replied, "Now go help with the body disposal"
He turned to Warhead who was nearly bouncing with excitement, "Stay still"
"Sorry," Warhead said, stiffening upright.
Silver set to work attaching the spikes to his hand. It was nothing too taxing on his CPU. He worked, his mind focused on the security footage he'd compiled of their previous encounter with the Empire. They were beginning to grow desperate. But why? What was it that was drawing the Empire to this base?
'Those documents the Geonosian was looking at must have something to do with it. They keep talking about the Death Star,' Silver thought, 'If I throw out all those documents, would they leave us alone?'
The cables on the back of his head wriggled in response, twisting and turning in agony.
'No, they would bomb the base and that would be the end of us. We need to keep those documents safe however worthless they are to us,' Silver thought. He felt ashamed to even think of the notion, but somehow pieces of paper were worth more than any of their lives, 'All the more reason to keep fighting for as long as possible. Those Imperials, they're more than just evil, they're the reason why we were built in the first place'
It had been some time since he'd thought of what the Geonosian had said to him, how the Empire wanted to kill them, to destroy the past thoroughly. To him, he was almost certain that fear was the driving factor behind their need to kill them, but the documents didn't exactly support this idea. In fact, it only proved to him that there was much he didn't know about the galaxy. Where was the Confederacy anyways? Were they still battling it out with this new Empire? Or had they been defeated? The Geonosian had talked about the Death Star and of defeating the Empire but never of the Confederacy or Count Dooku or General Grievous, or anyone else.
'That doesn't matter. I hope they're dead for our sake. But the Empire, their motivations for attacking us, that's what I must decipher. All we can do now is keep fighting'
But fighting them head-on was proving to be less and less effective as time went on. Data points estimated they would be dead by their next encounter with the Empire if he didn't change their strategy.
The unconventional, the illogical, the risky back-handed maneuvers not conceivable by a logical machine, that's where their success lay.
And he had the perfect team to come up with such a strategy.
He wielded the last of Warhead's spikes. He stared directly into his eyes, wishing to see what was going on in his head.
"There you go, it's all done," Silver said.
Warhead rose his hand into the air, shining the light down onto the sparkling sharp ends of his new spiked hands and fingers. He turned to Silver and suddenly grabbed at his shoulder, shaking him in his seat, "Thank you again Silver, I'll fight twice as hard, just for you"
"I'm glad to have you in my army," Silver replied, he handed him another bundle of spikes, "Attach these to your shield. Now go and help the others finish cleaning"
Warhead strode out into the base.
'They believe fully in my capacity to command. I can't disappoint them, they'd probably kill me if I did,' Silver thought. He set his focus back to planning, his CPUs spiked to full usage.