It had been about 3 hours since the imperial scouting raid on Jake's home, he and his droids had already warned the Geonsonian hive mind and they were in the process of deciding what to do. Jake sat down on Teesh's porch, all of his droids stood not too far away talking about the assault, several citizens were scurrying around seemingly stockpiling materials. Jake cupped his head as he was (understandably) over stressed with the whole situation. Not only was his house under threat, his entire village and his mechanical friends were all in peril due to what Jake thought was an obvious imperial attack that will inevitably happen soon. Rusty detected Jake's concern and left the other droids to see what was up. Jake looked up at the surprisingly tall B1 who stood there waving slightly, its eyes glowing a traditional white.
"are you alright sir?" Rusty said as the droid's body moved in a nervous way.
"I'm fine Rusty, just a bit worried about this whole ordeal" Jake told the B1 followed by a long sigh. Rusty stared at the ground for a small while, almost seeming to search his program for an acceptable response, he was a Battle droid Afterall, not a therapist.
"Well, I'm sure if we just blast them enough.....they might go away?" Rustys attempt to calm Jake worked mostly thanks to the unseen stupidity behind the statement, but it worked nonetheless. with a slight chuckle from Jake he stood up and patted Rustys shoulder.
"Thanks for the optimism Rusty, wish my brain could be as happy as you right now" he said mostly to himself.
"your welcome?" Rusty said slightly confused by his statement, because for Rusty the plan was to just keep shooting, at least he thought it was. In the end the droid didn't really give a damn, and just followed Jake back to the group.
"alright listen up!" Jake announced as he stopped walking near his droids, all of which turned to face him. "The empire...is coming, most probably at least. until the Geonsonian Hive mind decides what to do we need to gather info about the empire. search your memory, please tell me you guys know something?" Jake explained with a hint of desperation.
With a few nods and a couple Roger Rogers the droids began scanning their memory banks, Rusty was the first to finish. "Nothing on the empire sir, just memories of being destroyed by clones," Rusty told Jake as they both turned to Clank, who had also finished.
"My program only remembers basic weaponry of the Republic's clone troopers" Clank spoke in his low voice.
"could be useful but not really helpful...thanks anyways Clank" Jake sighed
"affirmative" Clank spoke with no change in tone at Jake's accidental insult.
Tac walked up to Jake and pulled out an old separatist hologram.
"This Separatist base has been abandoned for several cycles, however it is likely that the empire is attempting to salvage all remaining droid models there" Tac looked down a bit as it told Jake this in a slightly sorrowful tone. Rusty and Clank gave a small mechanical noise that almost seemed like a way of saying "im pissed".
Jake stared at the holo image, it was a massive wall within a canyon, behind said wall was a small bunker that probably was used for harboring supplies such as fuel, ammo, oil and of course droids. The wall itself had mini images of turrets and even droids walking around.
"Are those other droids?!" Rusty exclaimed happily. Jake enjoyed the B1s enthusiasm, Tac on the other hand..
"no, this is an older image, it is likely all droid models have been reduced to scrap metal," Tac said logically as he closed the hologram.
"oh..." Rusty said quietly.
Clank shoved Tac a bit for ruining Rustys mood, Tac just stared at the B2 confused. Jake called them back to attention soon after.
"were gonna take a look at this base, if there's no imperials their, we scrap the remaining droids, use them to sell and repair you guys along with other stuff, plus it could be fun"
as the separatist droids all nodded R4 beeped out a question
"beeeop beeob bob obooopp?" R4 rolled up to jake saying this
"if there's imperials there...then we'll tear them apart" Jake said with a probably unstable smile.
------
Everyone had walked out the gates and said goodbye to Teesh, who had already returned to his home. He vowed to stay and help the bugs, but Jake wouldn't be surprised if he found Teesh sleeping atop his heated solar panel. Rusty attached himself to the right side of the speeder bike, which had been filled with blaster marks from their encounter earlier today. Clank attached to the left side, Tac sat behind Jake, and R4 attached to the back. Jake revved up the bike and sped off into the vast fields of sand and randomly placed rocks. The ride was gonna take longer than usual, thanks to the insane amount of extra weight.
"I am surprised this thing can hold all of us" Rusty squeaked in its high mechanical voice.
"fair point Rusty.." Jake said quickly looking behind him to see all of his droids
"What about you Tac? is this logical?" Rusty asked almost mockingly
Tac ignored the mocking "i am as surprised as my programming allows"
"Jeez your programming makes you boring" Rusty exclaimed, annoyed at Tacs bluntness.
"and yours makes you incompetent" Tac responded, Rusty didn't respond to this.
"Stop arguing guys, enjoy the scenery, look at the sky, we're together on this little journey of ours" Jake tried to split up the bickering.
"even though there is only sand and rocks around us" Tac scanned the surroundings, the sand that blew threw the air, the large rock structures that looked like works of art, the red tinted sky filled with clouds and specs of sunlight shining on the droids metallic plating. Tacs burnt leg shimmered against the sunlight as the droids auditory sensors picked the small pitter patter of sand hitting his metal as they moved threw the desert.
"It is surprisingly calming," Tac finished. Rusty turned to look at Tac atop his seat, the B1 didn't say anything but Jake knew it agreed with the T series.
It didn't take long for the group to eventually reach the entrance of the cliff-created valley. all 4 droids had shutdown at this point, to save power. Jake gently parked the speeder so as to not disturb his droid friends. He hopped out the speeder and manually activated all the droids, which was a calmer way to awaken them rather than just shaking the shit out of each droid. Rusty, Clank, Tac and R4 all hopped off and followed Jake further into the crack formed by the two cliffs.
"are you sure this is safe?" Rusty asked Jake as they continued.
"i doubt anything bad could, according to Tac everything here should be long destroyed" Jake looked at Tac "right?"
Tac gave the best thumbs he could with his 3 fingers in response.
"seeeeeeeeeee" Jake slurred confidently.
Rusty didn't respond other then nervously clutching his E-5 blaster, Jake also pulled out his pistol in response, which was followed by Clank and Tac readying their weapons, even R4 got his tazer ready, ahead of them lay the predicted ruins of what was once a massive wall.
"wait...why didn't we just fly the LAAT?" Rusty asked suddenly
"well that would alert ever imperial within a 3 mile radius" Jake answered sarcastically.
"...Roger Roger!...." Rusty responded
The 5 walked forwards and climbed up the remains, clone armor littered one side of the wall, presumably the entrance. The other side was relatively clear of bodies, the actual rubble itself was the worst for the droids to look at, droid pieces every which way. burned hands stuck out of the wall pieces, heads, both clone and droid littered smaller areas of the field.
Clank walked up to one of the burnt arms and yanked on it, as rubble moved out of the way a droid corpse emerged as it was held by Clank. no emotion be seen through the B2s eyes when looking at them, but when Jake looked at him Clanked dropped the crushed droid and quickly bent over to pick up a clone helmet and showed it to Jake. The others, who were scouting around, had stopped and looked at the B2 after being motioned over by Jake.
"They must Die" Clank Spoke as he squeezed the helmet he was holding, cracking it.
"I'd love to see you try clanka" - ????
The group quickly turned towards the sound, a squadron of Imperials stood were they had entered between the 2 cliffs, a mix of Clones and TKs led by the trooper who spoke, A clone who has grey markings, Jake noticed the overhang on the clones helmet as well as his worn armor.
"Clones!!" Rusty yelled in panic, throwing his arms into the air.
Clank had little response, but he didn't ready his wrist blaster. a few Imperials advanced closer to them.
"stay back!" Tac threatened, despite this he was actually walking slightly backwards.
"it all right guys" Jake tried to calm the droid down, more R4 and Rusty tho, he turned to the clone commander " what's your name trooper"
the Clone stared at Jake "Cody...yours Kid?"
"Jake.....You don't have to do th-" Jake was cut off by Cody.
" you're the one conspiring with sepis!" Cody accused
"I saved these Droids!" Jake yelled at Cody, before Cody could speak Jake continued "and if you're talking about the Geonosians, they mean no harm to you anymore" Jake finished pointing at the clones.
"Either way kid...you're under arrest" Cody said this with a hint of guilt, but he began walking towards Jake.
"R4 now!!" Jake yelled and quickly ran and jumped behind the wall remains for cover, Clank and Tac followed as Rusty stood there scared, before also following.
Cody and the other troopers took a step back in anticipation as R4 rolled up the remains and dropped 6 to 7 Droid Poppers he collected from dead clones. Jake motioned for his droids to follow him as he ran away behind a large boulder, the clones and TKs took a few steps back as the poppers released a wave of electricity that showered the wall remains.
" How does this help us?" Rusty said panicked
"any remaining droid should be powered on by the charge" Tac notified the group
"how long" Jake quickly asked
"the droids should power on then loose charge in about 10 minutes sir" Tac reminded him.
"i'd like to get informed in the next plan" Rusty complained
"not now" Jake said slightly laughing "lets watch how the clones do"
the clones watched in horror as previously dead droids twitches violently as they filled with power, their eyes lighting up and arms raising up, clutching rubble as they lifted themselves upwards, the droids groaned in agony as those who had baster began to fire, those who didn't hobbled towards the Imperials, said Imperials began to fire at the droids. red bolts flew both ways. Cody rolled behind a large rock, many other Imps who hadn't been killed also headed for cover.
The droid bravely marched forwards, mostly B1s but few B2s as well, all groaning in defiance as they fought for a final time. Jake and his group watched with slight sense of accomplishment as one of the risen B1s yelled "For the S-s-separatist alliance!!!" followed by a yell from the other droids. as the mass of droids came closer to the Imps Jake could see that droids without blasters began to team up against clones, this continued for few minutes as the screams of droids and clones alike echoed throughout the cliffs, soon enough however silence...with the footsteps of only 1 B1 being heard, it had no blaster and was soon knocked to the floor by Cody.
"any last words Clanka?" Cody threatened, pressing his heavy rifle into the droid's faceplate.
the B1s zombie like twitches continued as it responded "Yo-yo-you-u Canno-o-ot-tt Wi-wi-win"
Jake's droids looked away as another clone laughed "we already have" Jake closed his eyes as a blaster shot followed. Jake quickly stood up and ran further down between the cliffs, the patter of metal footsteps followed as his droids also ran. Imperial forces were cut clean in half by the final stand of the separatists. Cody decided to sit and set up camp at the entrance between the cliffs, this was Jake's only way out.
Jake had been running for quite some time, and eventually found the bunker Tac had theorized was here. "Well, seems you're right Tac" Jake said decently out of breath.
"you owe me 50 credits" Tac said turning to R4
"BEE!, beo boo booo boop" R4 beeped aggressively
"Whoa! watch your language!" Rusty exclaimed "R4 you you know better" Jake followed
R4 turned around without responding. Jake sighed a walked towards the bunker entrance, which, unsurprisingly enough, had a massive fucking whole in it. walking inside Jake's eyes adjusted to the light difference, he saw several droid bodies as expected, however they weren't B1 corpses.
"hey guys" Jake called his droids "what droid is this?" he said looking a darkly toned droid body, its head was similar to the b1 but shorter, it was holding what Tac would later inform him to be a vibro blade, the droid also seemed much more streamline, of course Jake didn't really know cause it was clearly dead.
"Commando Droids.....elite separatist units designed for stealth operations" Tac informed.
"I've never seen them before" Rusty inquired
"we were built and destroyed before their invention" Clank suggested, followed by agreeing beeps from R4.
"interesting.." Jake spoke aloud, but mostly to himself.
Despite this info the group split to look for an escape route, hoping to not return towards the Imps. Jake could be seen scraping droid parts, assuming they were valuable, R4 was also with him. Rusty had wandered into a separate room, a few commandos dead on the floor, the B1 nervously walked towards the bodies and kneeled down to look at them. however a commando corpse twitched as Rusty touched it, its eyes lit up as it reached and grabbed Rustys neck. The last thing the others heard was the high pitched yell of the Droid.