All around the base, the skeletal bodies of each of the droids moved with increasingly smooth and fluid movements.
Save for two.
Auto, with his strict regiment of following protocol, and Terra, their newly re-activated squad-mate.
Deadeye watched him work, intrigued by his odd behavior.
Terra's job currently was to dig a home-made mine made from the battery of the ruined turret underneath the final step of the entrance. He dug his sharp fingers into the ground, gouging out the velvety dirt and smearing it all over his body. First he covered his abdomen, caking every inch of his chest and metal stomach with the stuff. He moved onto his arms, swiping it up and down as if he were washing himself with soap or oil.
Deadeye's curiosity got the better of him and he went striding over to Terra's side, waving a hand in front of his stoic eyes.
"Yes?" Terra said.
"Why are you covering yourself with dirt?" Deadeye asked.
Terra looked down at his body. He was sitting on his knees, his hands held up in front of him, "My last memory was being buried in the ground by an artillery shell. I want to go back underground. It was warm. I was safe. The enemy could not kill me down there and so I powered down, happy" He didn't bother to glance back up at Deadeye as he continued working. His hands smoothed over his hips next.
Deadeye stood there for a few more seconds, contemplating whether or not to stop him from continuing his peculiar way of creating camouflage.
'There's no harm in wanting to stay invisible from the enemy. It's what I do,' Deadeye thought returning to his own work.
He immersed himself in the rigging of a tripwire with the explosive not yet set. Already, he could imagine the great and thunderous explosion that would ensue with it's tripping. There would be a flash of yellow, a signal for the rain of razor sharp strands of metal to go flying out, ripping the clones to shreds even under their armor. He'd seen it plenty of times before, mostly watching out of curiosity. Their deaths were always much slower with these mines but his organic superiors had told him often of the psychological damage that would follow for any survivors. It was like an invisible hand that crept into their heads, draining all life from the organics until they died in some way or another or became completely irrational.
'Is that what happened to Terra?' He wondered, 'But we can't sustain psychological damage, can we?'
Silver would know.
He stashed the question away for another time.
Psychological damage, he'd unknowingly used it often in his assassinations.
On more than one occasion, he'd eliminated a target right in front of a relative, sometimes spewing their brains and skull right onto them. He'd remembered it specifically happen to a human woman once, the target being her husband. He had been deep behind enemy lines, on a planet not too dissimilar to Coruscant with it's sea of lights and thousand mile long buildings. It had been at some sort of social gathering where organics liked to come together for fun and conversation. (The whole concept sounded ridiculous. It was almost entirely foreign to him were it not for the downtime in between missions spent with some of his squad-mates in more recent times). The woman had gasped, feeling the liquid of her lover spill onto her back. She laughed for a moment, he didn't know why, but when she turned, her face contorted to pure horror.
He'd never seen an expression like that before.
He'd like to see it more often. Preferably, on the face of a clone or any organic for that matter, but a clone would be better.
Or...
He smacked himself upside the head, 'That's how he would've thought. Get focused'
He turned right into Warhead strutting up to him, his shield now tethered to his back by a loose piece of rope wrapped around his abdomen.
"Deadeye, the second trap I was given to setup says to go outside. I'd like permission to go with a partner," Warhead said with Gears close behind him.
Deadeye looked between them, "Go ahead, I'll join you myself soon"
"Roger," Warhead marched off, a box of scrap metal in one hand.
Deadeye dangled the wire down from the wall where it was embedded, letting it fall to the floor. There was a sparkle of excitement growing within him for the next battle that would come. He wanted—no, his body was hungry for it. Hungry to see the clones destroyed under his hand, their flesh and bones exposed to the parasitic dust that enveloped the whole of Geonosis.
'I'm thinking too much like him,' Deadeye thought, 'I need to distract myself'
He marched outside, finding Warhead and Gears close-by the entrance.
'Maybe every battle droid thinks like this,' Deadeye marched up behind Gears, his back to him. Warhead was knelt on the ground digging away at the dirt.
Gears whipped around, feeling the glowing warmth of Deadeye's internals brush up against him.
"Did you get assigned to this trap too?" Gears questioned.
"No, I just wanted to ask you two a question," Deadeye replied.
"We're not very experienced like you sir, but we can try our best to answer" Warhead said, stopping his digging and turning to him.
"Do you….Do you enjoy killing the clones? I didn't before, but recently it started. I just want to know if that's normal," Deadeye said.
Gears stared at him, his head wavering in place as he thought.
Warhead was quick to respond, "I do. It satisfies my objective as a battle droid. It's better if I'm up close. Hitting a target, that feels good too, but me personally, I like feeling them crush under my hand. It's as if the crushing lights up all of my circuits at the same time. There's no other sensation like it"
"Has it always been like that for you?" Deadeye asked.
Warhead was silent for a moment. He dug his toe into the ground as if it would help him find the answer, "I don't know. My memory files are corrupted. When I was first powered on here, I felt it. I'm sure every battle droid feels the same"
"Negative," Gears replied, "I don't enjoy it. It's satisfying but only as much as shooting a blaster is satisfying. I enjoy supporting the team. I want us to win the battle, to work together as one unit, that brings me more satisfaction than anything else"
Deadeye let out a warbled static-riddled sigh, "Thank you for answering," He marched off to his own trap.
'That didn't help answer my question. In fact, now I have even more questions,' He thought, kneeling to the ground.
He struck the ground with his fingers, letting his bottled-up rage consume him.
Scraps tinkered with a bit of steel contorted and bent like origami. He shoved it into the wall, following Silver's instructions perfectly.
He grabbed a thin opaque piece of plastic string and weaved it through his fingers.
A scraping, like that of a Geonosian's claws embedding into the wall, ripped his attention away.
He glanced up, extending his long head into the air.
Spider was above the entrance, scratching away at the ceiling with one hand. His spiked toes and one hooked hand were embedded deep into the ceiling.
A waterfall of crumbled pebbles rained down on Terra below. Terra stopped what he was doing and sat back onto the back of his knees, his arms sagged to the floor and he lifted his head up towards the sky as if he were being bathed in oil.
'Somethings wrong with him,' Scraps thought. He shook his head and threaded the last of the wire between his fingers, 'I should just mind my business'
He tested the strength of the string, pulling it at both ends and unwound the entire length of it to the other end of the chamber. He let it fall to the floor, mindful not to arm it before the others would return.
The next trap would be on the outside. He rummaged through a pile of metal and electronics near the security booth.
He held up another twisted piece of metal to his eyes, 'Our commander is so inventive. I wonder…'
He twisted his body around. Spider was nearly done setting up his trap. Terra had finished with his and was now sitting on his knees, staring at the floor. Auto was close-by, rigging up another trap in the floor. He held a nasty-looking device in his hands, a giant metallic maw that would crunch an organic's leg to bits.
At first he'd strode over to Auto, but he looked to be deeply focused, not even bothering to look up or even acknowledge his presence. He walked to be beside Terra. Doing his best to ignore him, he tapped a finger against his palm.
Spider twisted, turning his body sideways to look at him, "Yes?"
"Do you think Silver could make me weapon arms like he did with you?" Scraps asked.
"I don't know. Go ask him, and these aren't weapons, they're just to help me climb," Spider twisted back around, embedding what looked like a smaller version of a naval mine into the hole he'd made.
Scraps slowly turned his attention to Terra who hadn't moved an inch in the last minute, "Hey...Terra, are you alright?"
Terra lazily turned his head up towards him, "Yes, I'm all covered now. I can stay out of sight. Out of sight, out of mind. Out of sight, out of mind…"
'He'd better not act like this when we get into a battle. The last thing I want to die from is my own squad-mate getting us all killed,' Scraps thought, "I think Silver needs to check up on you, but right now we need to get these traps rigged up. Come with me," He pulled him to his feet. Terra offered little resistance, "When we're fighting, I'll be right next to you making sure you're actually doing something and not just covering yourself in dirt again," Scraps said, small spurts of static interrupting his voice here and there.
"I'll fight just as hard as the rest of you," Terra replied, "You don't need to worry"
"We'll see," Scraps wrapped his hand around his forearm and pulled him along outside.
Deadeye was crouched down, punching his fingers into the dirt with echoing thuds.
Warhead and Gears were still at the opposite end making their own assortment of holes in the ground and walls of the rock spire.
"I need to go to the left out here. Where is your next trap?" Scraps said, turning back to Terra.
His chassis was completely covered in slops of slightly moist dirt, forming almost like a layer of extra armor.
"In the ground," Terra said, turning to Deadeye, "Close to his"
"Alright, go. Complete the objective and stop staring at the ground," Scraps replied.
Terra silently went on his way.
'I think it would've been better if we'd left him in the dirt…'
R-BV5 presented the first of the upgrades to Silver who eyed the upgraded comm-link booster pack with keen eyes.
R-BV5 tapped his fingers together nervously, it was his first project and it could very well be his last.
Silver finally looked directly at him and nodded, "A fine job"
"Thank you Silver. Who should I give this to?" R-BV5 said, his arms falling back to his sides.
Silver handed the pack back over to him, "It's for you. I wanted to test your abilities, and you passed"
"Oh," R-BV5 said, snapping his pack back into place, "I'll use it well"
Silver nodded, "You worked nearly as fast as me, for that I will name you Jet"
"Re-configuring internal name database," Jet replied, his body stiffening.
Silver waited until he could see movement from him again, "I'll need you to extend my signal out there. You don't need to do anything difficult with that pack, don't worry too much about it. Now go and bring Terra back in and work on his set of traps," Silver said, pointing to the entrance.
"Yes sir," R-BV5 said, his gaze lingered on his twinkling body, perfectly lit up by the artificial lights overhead. He marched out before Silver could notice his stare.
Silver stretched his creaking limbs, extending his arms out into the air ahead of him, 'Terra must be the error in my dataset. I didn't notice anything out of the ordinary in his programming. It must be his personality core'
Terra strode in a few minutes later, his body still caked in dirt.
"Reporting," He said, his blaster was holstered awkwardly beside the pack on his back.
Silver sat back, assessing him silently.
How exactly could he assess his personality of all things?
His head snapped forward.
"Terra, answer me this," Silver began, focusing in on the slight twitches of his body and arms, "When you're out on the battlefield, where do you find yourself most comfortable?"
"Anywhere but the front," Terra answered immediately.
Silver's head recoiled, "Are you an assassin droid, like Deadeye?"
"Negative," He answered immediately again.
Silver's vocalizer activated to ask another question but Terra interrupted him.
"I'm no special model, but I would not want to look like you out there. You're almost...glowing. But I wouldn't want to be all the way back here either"
Silver leaned forward closer to him, "Can I count on you to fight as fiercely as the others?"
"You can," Terra said with a curt nod, he patted one side of his chest where the dirt had begun to crumble off of him, "I didn't get the chance the first time around sir. I'd like to make it up to you"
"The first time? What do you mean?" Silver replied, the cables on the back of his head were extended to max capacity as he leaned forward entranced by Terra's peculiar behavior.
"You don't remember? You were my squad commander when we first defended this base. I was hit by an artillery shell which buried me in the ground. I didn't get the chance to fight"
Silver finally sat back, his body bouncing against the holo-table, "I don't remember," he slid a hand over the top of his head, scraping at paint chips that weren't there, "Why can't I remember?"
Terra's vocalizer activated to answer, but he never got a chance to voice his response.
"Get out," Silver said, his voice coming from everywhere.
"Yes sir," Terra turned swiftly and left in a hurry.
Silver covered his face with both hands, 'Why can't I remember anything?,' He could see the Geonosian again, and the clones and their horrible pure white armor, 'They took it from me...I'll take it back from their bodies. I need my old self back. I need to succeed. I can't let them down. Not again'