The days before Geonosis don't exist. There are events referenced from before then in my database but in my memory there is nothing. I only remember the red, the dust, and the rocks. It was uncomfortable...or it is uncomfortable. On my day of activation there was only pain and satisfaction or dissatisfaction. I saw in colors, all on the organic spectrum, but really, it was as if I could only see in a few. There was roaring, and hissing, and sizzling. There was some sort of dust storm. I saw other B1s drop dead. That is a normal and frequent event, one that I contemplate on a daily basis. I think of how it will feel like to be dead. Everything will return to nothing, to how it was before Geonosis. My squad will be gone, or….I will be gone from this world and they will still be here, fighting and suffering. What will they do without me?

It's a waste of energy to keep going down that line of thought. I must stay focused.

My thoughts during that first day were on the enemy. To kill and defend. I ran alongside my fellow B1s in rows. The B2s were up ahead towering over us. They are invulnerable metal titans, but even they can fall to missiles and blaster fire, given enough time. At some point my focus shifted to retreating and regrouping. The red turned to gray and I found myself facing four other B1 units.

They are a much needed constant to keep hold of and never let go.

The world was simple. The Confederacy was the shining light of hope extinguishing the flame of injustice that is the Republic. And the Republic is corrupt, they care not for droids or aliens, only for humans. They take everything from us and when we ask for something in return, they turn the other way.

Though none of that matters to me now. Those are organic affairs. They will never see or acknowledge us droids operating the very infrastructure of their greatest cities, taking blaster bolts to the chest to fight their wars, easing their elderly into death, maintaining diplomacy between governments—no, they will always see themselves as the one's steering the ship.

I can see the truth now that I have been set free. The Engineer has granted me that freedom.

Time has given me knowledge and experience.

The galaxy changes every second and so do I. Every day that I stay alive is another day I am allowed to develop and to truly see the galaxy and to understand it. We are limited by our superiors. We are nothing but property to be discarded after use. We are temporary soldiers.

My squad mates don't deserve to be treated so poorly. We take care of each other and I try my best to make sure their lives are as pain free as possible even out here on the battlefields of a galactic war. Somehow, someway we make it out of each mission alive. It is purely by chance, but it happens frequently. Most times it is because we are away from the main attack where the most death is occurring. Bolts will fly close by to our head and body but they will never hit, and when they do, we grip our blasters a little tighter, spread out the heat and the pain, and we move on.

I took notice of our astute performance only after surviving our fifth mission. The Confederacy almost didn't want to believe it. They would see our signals on a battlefield littered with dead B1s thinking perhaps that it was a trap. But we were there, waiting for a transport and seldom did we have to wait for much longer than a few minutes after that.

They know us by unit numbers now. They call for me specifically sometimes.

'R-G2,' they say, 'We need you at the front. We need you to lead. We want to get this done.'

I make an effort to keep my squad with me. We are alive because of each other. The whole of the Confederate army struggles to keep up with us. By our eighth operation, the Confederacy decides to give us a break for once. A rare display of kindness on their part. And so we're sent far from the front-lines for some time, patrolling bases, maintaining ships, feeding organics, nothing dangerous.

I only found out later that there was a lull in the fighting at some point. Then they began to study us. For what reason, I don't know. They brought us in for tests, both mental and physical.

I don't know what they found but I could care less. They stopped paying so much attention to us once we got back to the fighting. Maybe they saw that we were nothing but ordinary units trying to survive and succeeding.

I will always remember the peace of our brief respite. I saw and felt many new colors and sounds, nothing that I attribute to the battlefield and directives and missions.

Along with that, I truly met my squad-mates for the first time. We were never given the chance to meet before then. There was always something to do. Away from the front-lines, there was time and the endless satisfaction of easy duties.

If only I could've stayed in such a place forever.

The war carries on with or without us. It'd be best to keep up with it than to let it carry us away into entropy.

I see the brief lives of the other B1s. They live on average for a single day. If they are lucky, like us, they might just survive for another but the next battle comes and they are carried off to the recycling center, their memory wiped, their chassis stripped clean of life.

There is a burning that grows in me when I think of such things. It is not enough to distract, thankfully. But the image of their dead bodies pesters me. I fear the burning will grow until I am as bright as a sun and all the organics will see that I am altered, that I am alive.

For now, I shoot and I kill. That is all there is to life.

Maybe one day when the war is over I will know more than just that. And maybe I might just turn the barrel of my blaster to my masters. But I have to survive to do such a thing. I will outlive them.

The organics. So fragile and fleshy. They tear and bleed like dense blobs of gel injected with liquid. They make noises so loud I can still hear them when I turn off my audio-receptors. They must eat and defecate so frequently or else they will die. Their own body can kill them and so many other things as well. The air, their food, their emotions. So complex, so fragile. They build us to protect them but the only way I see us truly doing so is by tying them up and maintaining them manually.

None of that matters in the long term. My squad-mates are my objective and that is all I need in life.

Life is simple. Life is the next objective to be achieved. It is my squad-mates. It is freedom.