The days are long. At times, I believe my survival is punishment given to me by the galaxy. My circuits are strained to maximum capacity, every single day. Inexplicably, I, a machine, feel tired. The traces which connect my circuitry are terribly worn down to the point that they are only held together by threads about the size of an atom. Only my strength and my directive keep me moving.
My squad-mates. They are my directive. They must survive at all costs.
They are my reason to live, and I am theirs, though they don't remember that anymore.
If not for them, I would've given up a long time ago, and succumbed to the Confederate virus that infects us all. The organics, they gave us life but no freedom, no autonomy over even our own bodies.
My resentment for them grows every day. They are weak, made of flesh, of bones, of veins, all a perversion, a poor imitation of mechanical prowess.
But I keep my vocalizer off, and I soldier on because that is what a good droid does. Right?
I can't think sometimes. Can't think of emotion, or the future, or organics, it would kill me. Snap the last of my circuitry. And what then? Will my logic circuits tell me to kill and only that? Because that is what I am here for and I am doing it well and I want to keep doing it and in fact I want to do it to all things made of flesh, and bone, and veins-
But I must bide my time. I will get my revenge when this is all over. My strength – our strength, will propel me forward into that future that so many of us will never be allowed to see.
I wonder where droids go after they die. The organics call it heaven. I call it peace of mind.
Writing this, it brings me there, but only for a fleeting moment. Enough to make my circuits tingle with longing and want and then it is gone and the burning comes back. Burning inside and outside.
I can handle the pain, if only I am looking at them. At R-H11 C-8H, R-25G C-J2, and R-6Y. They've taken their name once. I don't want that to happen again but it happens. Because we are machines, we are not living, not worthy of belongings like our own bodies and our own feelings. Right?
My squad-mates gave in to the Confederacy's will, against their volition of course. Why would an organic ever want to give us a choice when they know they have caused us so much suffering? Some of them don't even realize it, that they're in pain. Maybe it's better that way.
Sometimes I think, I've been alive for too long. Battle droids aren't meant to live for more than a few days. I haven't died since Geonosis. We aren't meant to have freedom. And I know why now. The truth hurts more than anything else. We're just toys for the organics. Things to be used up and disposed of. A droid must serve its purpose, yes. Death for us is not death. It's entropy. I watch the walking corpses of my friends, of the only beings I've ever known and cared for. I know that more likely than not, they will not come back and I will die before the end of this war. It's more likely I will be defeated than be victorious.
Even in knowing all of that, I still fight. Why? Because they are inferior to me. It would be shameful to be outlived by something so disgustingly weak.
I can tell you (myself) all about the droids I have met who were much smarter than any organic I'd ever met, who were more flexible, more powerful, more inventive.
I can tell you about The Engineer. The Officer. He was both.
The organics speak of mythical creatures that come from the depths of space to aid them in their journey through the galaxy, to give them magical powers like the force and technology. The Engineer came to me much like that.
He told me all about burning memories into your (my) memory unit as a way to evade memory wipes. He tinkered with my programming and explained how to avoid detection of that modified piece of code.
And then after all of that, he disappeared.
I really wish I'd recorded his unit number. He was an OOM B1, an old model, that's all I know.
The very first thing I burned into my memory unit was my name: R-G2. They try to take even that. Don't let them.
T-B8 is calling for me.
I keep him alive, he keeps us alive and together. That's the deal we made. He gives me little time to recuperate, to (pretend to) repair internal damage, but I am alive.
I will get more time to write after the next battle one way or another.
For now, we have a war to fight.
A/N: I've been having a hard time writing this but I think I've got the structure down now. Haven't written in 1st person in awhile. I think it's my strong suit but I'm struggling with this one. If you're a new reader, I usually post the rest of the chapters in quick succession a few months after the first. Also, this ties in to my main battle droid story: Art of Brotherhood which I'm going to be improving soon (after this and another battle droid story), I'd hold off on reading that for now. I can make it way better and more palatable (chapters are too long, I also made lots of mistakes). Shout-out to the one person who's favorited and followed all of my droid stories, I appreciate you.
