Published: July 29th 2023, 2:05:09 pm
HK-47 pulled back on the hyperdrive motivator lever of his current master’s newest tool of conflict resolution. The tunnel of hyperspace broke apart and he emerged beyond the mass shadow of the latest world to be infected with the scourge of substandard droids that seemed to be everywhere in the galaxy these days.
Mimban was not particularly memorable in the very long list of planets that HK could say he had visited. Just another mining world whose only interesting feature was the odd constantly rainy weather. Most these days would put that down to either mysterious Celestial engineering or even stretch credulity and say it was entirely natural to have a world that was only rainforests, mud fields, oceans and swamps.
No, to HK this world reeked of having been a former Rakatan Empire holding, formed and kept into this specific biosphere for the sole purpose of being ideal for a specific slave species. Somewhere on this world, either deep underground or at the deepest depth of the ocean, would be a World Forge - a device fueled by the energy of the planetary core and the Force, mindlessly carrying out its mandated function to keep the planet in this state.
His ship’s scanners began picking up numerous cargo vessels, just hanging in high orbit and quite a lot of radio chatter jumping back and forth.
“Mockery: Typical meatbags,” HK said, as he switched on his own comlink and pinged for his master’s frequency.
He received a quick response and within a few seconds a miniature holo of her appeared in the air above the instrument panel. Her armor had a new and rather fascinating pattern to it. HK could instantly perceive the math and intent behind it - yet another reason to like this current master. She hated substandard droids as much as he did.
“HK, welcome to Mimban,” she greeted.
“Salutary: Hello master. Excited query: Where do you want me? Pleading: Please, let it be where some of those new B2-ACM models are.”
She smiled with amusement, “There are a number of them here in Astrakane, though Rocket Droids and B1s are more common. The Mimbanese Liberation Army is currently fighting to free the area.” Her eyes scanned the cockpit, “I hope you’ve treated my shiny new Fang fighter properly.”
“Statement: Of course, master. Insincere Reassurance: I’ve got a copy of the MandalMotors owner’s manual in my database.”
“Really?” she said dryly, not impressed at all. “How closely have you been following the operating guidelines?”
“Reluctant answer: Not completely, master. Explanation: They are far too conservative. This is a fighter, not a civilian shuttle. Admission: Honestly master, I’m tempted to track down the meatbag authors of the manual and educate them.”
“And will these authors still be alive after your education?”
“Answer: That is entirely up to them, master.”
She visibly rolled her eyes in exasperation, “Anyway, I’m sending you the coordinates. Enter the atmosphere as steeply as you can, I don’t want you to be delayed. Getting some-” Her lightsaber ignited and she batted and deflected away a number of blasts. “Sorry about that, getting some heavy air support would be just the ticket to dealing with these Rocket droids.”
The fighter’s computer received the incoming data handshake and automatically rendered it into the main HUD.
“Eagerness: I’m looking forward to it, master. Logging you out.”
He shut down the comlink and pushed forward on the throttle lever, automatically computing a course of his own, without needing to wait the infinitely long six hundred milliseconds for the fighter’s computers to do it.
The fighter’s large central ion engine whined as it was pushed into 90% output, its smaller cousins on either side leaped to follow, giving a lower growl of sound within the cockpit. They were capable of pushing the Fang fighter to a most satisfactory 3400Gs of sustained acceleration. It could go to 3650 at maximum but keeping his master’s feelings in mind, he kept things conservative.
The planet grew and grew in the forward view and when the time was right he nosed the fighter over to a 45 degree dive towards the atmosphere and engaged the shields into double strength atmo entry mode. Then he flipped the fighter over, beginning deceleration.
It took three minutes and twelve seconds for the combined aerobraking and deceleration to shed his orbital velocity completely.
Another flip to bring the nose around and the fighter was streaking through the upper atmosphere at just over 1800 kph when the final fiery slivers of air friction disappeared and revealed once again the seemingly infinitely green and brown world, covered with a dark blanket of cloud.
HK flicked a few switches and the shields reformed into their atmospheric high speed mode.
This was an ingenious idea that stemmed from his master and something that MandalMotors had been very keen to make work.
It had required a very thorough reengineering of the shield emitters to levels of precision you’d normally see in laboratories, but in the end it was mostly successful. Now the shields had remolded themselves into a shape that would look quite odd to any ordinary meatbag, but was proven to be ideal to cut through the air in an extremely efficient manner.
The end result was that his master’s Fang fighter could sustainably cruise through an atmosphere at 1200 kph and even push it to 1900 at higher altitudes, depending on the planet’s air pressure. It was the fastest fighter in the galaxy at the moment, beating even the CIS Tri-Fighter by 50Gs in space and leaving it far behind in an atmosphere with its relatively low maximum of 1050 kph.
HK settled the fighter at an altitude of nine kilometers and after a bit of testing and experimentation, managed to cruise at about 1500 kph.
At that speed he only had nine minutes before he’d have to further dive to reach the battle site and slow down enough to meaningfully contribute.
The cloud layers swallowed the fighter and the world turned into a constantly shifting misty white expanse.
He finally broke through the clouds at 396 meters, the coordinates for the town of Astrakane was less than five kilometers distant and he had to further slow down to a mere 500 kph, whilst he engaged the scanners into air mode.
They immediately spotted and identified 19 Rocket droids flying and buzzing about the coastal town, firing both missiles and blasters down into the defenders.
The Mimbanese were firing back with blaster rifles, seeking cover and shelter behind any convenient building.
It was a seemingly hopeless battle, as even if they managed to hit a Rocket Droid, it damaged the armor but did seemingly little else.
HK’s own optical scans of the battle managed to just see a Rocket Droid suddenly stop in midair before it was crushed into rounded wreckage in an all too familiar and satisfying manner.
His circuits felt satisfaction that his master was down there somewhere, doing the galaxy a favor and destroying pathetic droids, but now it was his turn.
A few switches later his shields were normalized into combat mode, the S-foil wings opened, and the two forward, wing mounted laser cannons were powered up to full capacity. He didn’t bother with the proton torpedo launcher, as the only weapons in it currently were anti-capital stand-off torpedoes and would erase the town and a significant portion of landscape for numerous kilometers. His master really should’ve had the meatbag clones on the Resolute exchange the proton launcher for a concussion missile launcher, but her orders hadn’t included that little detail.
His arrival and scan emissions hadn’t gone unnoticed by the droids.
Good.
He flipped the fighter around, using its vernier thrusters and vectored main thrust, to bring two hovering droids into his sights.
Two quick pulls of the firing trigger on the controls turned both into expanding, very brief fireballs that rained charred parts down onto the town.
The remaining 17 droids immediately stopped their own attacks on the town and started flying his way.
Three managed to quickly close the distance, to the point where no maneuvering would ever bring them into the sights of the cannons. HK didn’t bother even trying. He rolled the fighter to port and used thrust vectoring at just the right moment.
The end result was the fighter’s ventral shields swatting the droids like a giant hand had just swiped through the air.
Armor crumbled under the combined forces, until muted flashes and brief eruptions of flame occurred as the internal jetpack fuel of the droids cooked off. The unfocused energies didn’t even register on the shield integrity indicators.
HK kept rolling the fighter, twisting it around in a maneuver that a meatbag pilot would throw up his lunch trying to achieve, before triggering the cannons four times in quick succession. Then gave a burst of throttle and pulled the fighter to port to normalize with the horizon.
The deflection shots were satisfyingly perfect.
One bolt after the other erased a rocket droid from the sky.
“Reflective statement: Oh, how I missed this,” HK couldn’t help but say.
The remaining rocket droids regrouped into a formation at an altitude of about a kilometer above the town, trying to build up potential energy for a high speed attack run on him.
He decided to meet their challenge.
He pulled up hard and slammed the throttle to max before thumbing the overthrust button, streaking straight at the incoming formation. Then he switched the Fang’s cannons to a rapid-fire, low energy mode.
“Vicious exclamation: Surprise!”
A stream of bolts streaked towards the incoming droids. So rapid was the firing it looked like the Fang fighter was spraying a line of plasma, right to left as HK yawed the fighter across the enemy formation.
Six rocket droids fell out of the sky; either in pieces or cored straight through the torso.
The remaining four, undaunted, began firing everything they had at HK’s fighter.
The shields flared into visibility, deflecting and pushing aside as much of the energy as possible. If the B2s had only used their wrist blasters, they could spend an hour blasting at the shield and maybe come close to disrupting the integrity… a bit.
The guided rockets from the other arm was a different story.
The B2s managed to fire four rockets before they streaked past each other.
Three of them just managed the turn to slam into the Fang’s shields.
The rocket's warheads were optimized to generally attack fortified positions and armored vehicles, thus they managed to drain a fair chunk of shield integrity. HK had, however, in the last few milliseconds and calculating where they would hit, adjusted the shielding into double mode over the dorsal quarter of the fighter.
The Fang fighter barely registered the hit and kept shooting forward.
HK normalized the shielding, overrode the safeties of the inertial dampers, then flipped the fighter over in a manner that would’ve severely injured a meatbag pilot.
He gave another burst of overthrust and triggered the rapid fire cannons.
The stream of blaster fire slammed into the legs and backs of the rocket droids, quickly turning them into debris and slag that started to rain down onto the town.
He pulled his throttle back, pleasant tingles running across his circuits at a job well done. Then keyed up his master’s comlink.
“Reporting: Master, the skies are clear.”
“Excellent flying, HK, keep a CAP over the town and you are free to engage ground targets of opportunity, there should be plenty.”
“Affirmative: Understood, master. Assurance: I shall endeavor to keep collateral damage to a minimum.”
“Damn right you will. If you screw up, I’ll have you cleaning every single toilet in this town for a week!”
His circuits quivered in horror as an involuntary simulation of such activities flashed across his digital mind. Then the pleasure of having such a delightfully vicious master hit. “Indignation: Master! I am an assassin droid. Not these crude agglomerations of substandard parts we are fighting. I do not ‘screw up’.”
“Then shut up and prove it!” she shouted over the sound of blaster fire and multiple swinging lightsabers.
“Agreement: As you command, master.”
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For another seven hours he prowled in the skies of the town, but no more rocket droids were seemingly left or they failed to calculate a sufficiently high chance of successfully engaging him. Most of the time was spent swooping down and strafing enemy droid concentrations that were engaging the members of the local defense ‘army’; which seemed to consist of a mix of various meatbag species that his master had organized and sent to ‘liberate’ the town. It was also obvious that the local residents had also taken up arms.
Finally, he received coordinates for a landing zone that had been set up near the forward operating base of the Mimbanese Liberation Army.
At first glance from the air, it was nothing more than a patch of mud in a small clearing just two kilometers north of the town.
That was quickly proved to be in error as he extended the Fang fighter’s landing skids and secured the S-foils.
Just as he touched down, the edges of the clearing erupted with movement and now two dozen armed, camouflaged meatbags emerged from both the mud and the shadows of the trees.
He idly and automatically calculated the most efficient method of conflict resolution - divert power to repulsors to bring the craft into a hover, then yaw the fighter whilst triggering the rapid fire mode on the cannons.
Simulations predicted an eighty three percent fatality rate.
Marginally acceptable, although he would’ve preferred that to be a ninety three. He clearly needed more calibration and redundant code pruning on operating this fighter.
The meatbags at least had their weapons resting on their shoulders or pointed to the ground, so he filed the simulation for later review and didn’t execute it. Especially when the fully armored form of his master also emerged from the tree line and walked with purpose towards the landed fighter.
HK dutifully went through the recommended shutdown checklist according to the MandalMotors manual. He had no doubt that his master’s perceptions would spot most of the outright shortcuts he had taken in trimming down the overly precautious checklist.
That done he triggered the canopy, pulled himself out of the seat, then not even bothering with the extendable ladder meant for fragile meatbags, stepped out and easily stuck the landing with his metallic feet on the muddy ground of Mimban.
“Welcome to Mimban, HK,” she said offhandedly, her eyes solely on the Fang fighter and staring at it critically. “I trust you’ve not had your fill of violence today.”
HK bristled internally at the very concept, “Negatory: Most certainly not, master. Such a concept is antithetical to my programming. There is always and will always be violence to be had.”
The visor of her helmet seemed to glint briefly, the rare bit of sunshine reflecting off it as she tilted her head in thought. “Good, we have a situation that could use your unique talents and abilities. Gather your weapons, gear and lock up the fighter.”
“Affirmative: As you command, master.”
A few minutes later, suitably armed with his rotary cannons and shield pack latched onto his back, they walked into the rainforest with a number of the local militia in escort, whilst the rest disappeared from normal meatbag vision. HK’s own photoreceptors and sound pickups had long since been augmented by the master to include high resolution thermal, low light and distant sounds - quite like his old chassis - meaning he could at least hear where they were and pick up the small thermal traces they had left on the air itself.
It was just a few hundred meters before they arrived at a bustling camp that easily had space for over four hundred meatbags to live in. Everything was rather unorthodox and the tents had no uniformity, with the only organization being the positioning of everything and the general layout.
If everyone wasn’t armed and also clearly functioning in a hierarchy, he’d have thought they had stumbled into a meatbag vacation venue.
They approached a collapsible table around which were seated three meatbags; the first was master’s master, the other a truly large meatbag with a growth of hair on its lip, whilst the other was from the native species of meatbag.
“So this is our flying ace? A droid? Really?” The large meatbag sneered.
Master sighed explosively, “Mayor Brolet, I already explained that HK is a premiere combat droid who is entirely on our side and cannot be hacked. Both Master Skywalker and myself have worked extensively with him and on his systems to ensure that such a thing cannot happen. Our fight is not with droids in general, but with the CIS.”
The Brolet meatbag glared with folded arms at HK.
Ah, anti-droid prejudice. It was like an old friend had suddenly come home. Truly the meatbag condition never changed.
The Skywalker meatbag deftly interrupted HK’s calculated rejoinder; which was to idly wonder aloud how the Brolet meatbag managed to walk around with all that extra water and meat getting in the way. That was projected to swiftly raise a negative emotional reaction in the meatbag, increasing its blood pressure, causing the likelihood of a violent response to improve, upon which HK would have an excuse to engage in some glorious conflict resolution.
Unfortunately, algorithms predicted only a six percent chance that master would not intervene.
“We don’t have time for this,” Anakin meatbag said, who held out his hand, upon which a hologram appeared containing a topographical map of the area, which panned over to the nearby beach and ocean. Rising out of the sea a few kilometers from land was a tall domed building. “This off-shore rig is the cap to the local hyperbaride mine. A company of CIS droids has occupied it and destroyed all the transports that allowed workers to come and go. The only practical way to reach the rig now is this conveyor channel or to swim.” The underwater conveyor tunnel that terminated in a shore facility, which housed the processing equipment and landing pads for cargo starships, was highlighted in the holo. “Ahsoka and I can make that journey with rebreathers, so could a number of the Astrakane locals, but the droids are sure to see us coming, as they have full control of the facility - which has a number of defenses against the local underwater fauna.” He looked at HK pointedly.
“Extrapolation: You wish for me to infiltrate the facility and proceed with scrapping the inferior droids.”
He nodded, “In essence, yes, but there’s more to this HK. Normally, I’d just say we wait a day for the Resolute and Horizon to arrive. The clones would break out their Scuba assault gear and we’d do this quickly and relatively simply. However, the TX droid in charge of the company has threatened to blow all the explosives the mine has if we try anything.”
“Commentary: A mine shouldn’t have a significant amount of explosives on hand.”
Anakin nodded, “Correct, in an ideal world. They’d only ship in explosives as they needed them. It seems though that the mining company has decided to cut some corners and save on offworld shipping costs of such dangerous materials. Currently, the droids are sitting on enough commercial grade demolition explosives to turn the town and significant portion of the shoreline into a nice deep crater. The projected effects would also create a wave propagation in the ocean that will significantly damage a lot of coastline infrastructure and kill many thousands up and down the coast.”
Yet another symptom of the meatbag condition when they get together in groupings; gain profit above the pesky safety of their fellow meatbags, who they perceived to be beneath them. A young meatbag could predict what was coming next.
HK turned to his master, “Extrapolation: Master, you are going to order me to use the conveyor system. A system no meatbag would ever use, as it would be both uncomfortable and likely result in a meatbag’s cessation of function. Thus, the pathetic droids would never calculate that as an entry point for the infiltration of a superior assassination droid.”
“As much as I wish it would be that easy, HK, no.” Master shook her head. “It seems we need to update the threat assessments you ascribe to TX droids. This one at least has the smarts to know that the conveyor is now the only possible entry point and has anticipated either myself or Master Skywalker using it - knowing that a Jedi would also be able to survive those conditions with the aid of the Force. It has positioned units to watch that entrance. That means, to infiltrate the rig, you’re going to have to take a walk.” Master’s lips quirked with some secret amusement.
HK’s mind and circuits sped up to near full capacity as he calculated the meaning of that.
“Advisory: Master, my chassis and systems have not been tested for operations in such an environment.”
“Your original Guardian based chassis was rated for it, HK. We’ve made a lot of improvements since then. Trust me, you can handle it,” said the Skywalker meatbag. HK had to internally admit to himself that the meatbag was quite adept at droid construction and modification. Every internal diagnostic after he did maintenance showed an improbable three to five percent improvement in the efficiency of internal systems.
“Affirmative: Very well, master. Query: Do you wish me to begin as soon as possible?”
“Yes, both Anakin and I will be waiting for your signal to fly over and secure the rig.”
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HK engaged every internal seal he had as his metal feet bit into the soft white sand of the beach.
He engaged some processing time towards the question if he had ever been tasked in a similar manner by a previous master. His memories naturally had gaps, due to either deactivation, damage, memory wipes and other events that were entirely out of his control. Therefore he was rather marveling at the fact that he was about to engage in a manner of infiltration that was completely new. Sure there was that one time on Manaan with Revan, but he was the one who had gone on that underwater excursion.
HK reflexively ran a self-diagnostic again and could only conclude that he was experiencing some form of new malfunction. Why would he need to do it again? It was done. The data and his systems wouldn’t change! He wasn’t some mistake prone meatbag.
Yet he continued with the self-diagnostic anyway.
Internal seals - 100 percent.
Assassination protocols - 82 percent and still steadily increasing as he got used to his current chassis.
Communication protocols - 42 percent, who cares? He wasn’t about to waste memory space on all those new languages.
Energy levels - 96 percent.
Shield system - functional and working at 92 percent efficiency.
Internal flight system - functional at 90 percent, predicted to degrade to 70 within the aquatic environment.
Modified Z-6 Rotary Blasters - fully charged, underwater mode engaged, with four extra power packs stowed in the lower torso storage of his chassis.
Lightsaber - unchanged and functional, tucked away in his right leg storage.
His feet met the ocean ahead of him as the waves ran out of energy and merely lapped at his armored steel ankles. He continued undaunted and only paused when the water reached the waist of his chassis, then he bent his legs and continued on, kneeling further into the water as the larger waves began to hit his chest.
Then he submerged completely to avoid the more powerful waves from potentially picking him up. His steps continued and the surges of the waves passed overhead, his weight and lack of buoyancy keeping him rooted onto the white sea floor.
Traction was at acceptable levels but the aquatic environment meant his walking speed was pathetically slow. The need for stealth prevented the use of the flight system, which could function, but would announce his presence to the acoustic sensors of the rig.
So he kept walking, though he had to expend thirty percent more energy to achieve a mere 1.4 meters per second. The ocean depth at the moment was a mere five meters and scans showed that the deepest his journey would take him would be about 35 meters.
Depth wasn’t the problem. The seafloor here was not just a nice flat surface. There were numerous natural obstacles; reefs and other underwater rocks, not to mention the potential that some of the local meatbag aquatics might consider the shiny droid to be an interesting opponent or something to chew on.
Due to this irregular route he would have to take, it meant that he’d have a total journey of 2.6 kilometers. Even accounting for increasing depth slowing him down, he calculated a total travel time of 33 minutes and 33 seconds, though another subroutine calculated that it would actually be 39 minutes.
That time was nothing.
He was an assassination droid who thought nothing of waiting years in a single spot for the perfect moment to get his target. His mind accessed that fond memory that was almost 3850 years old at this point.
The target was an Old Republic senator who had what was considered the most foolproof, watertight security on Coruscant. Something he dearly needed as he had been making very powerful enemies with some of his policies. Other assassination attempts had all failed and it was considered a fool’s contract to take on. Revan wanted the senator eliminated anyway and had naturally decided that the perfection he had created in HK would be up to the job.
At first, HK had analyzed the security of the senator and found it most impregnable. It seemed as if every eventuality and gambit would fail. The senator even made use of his own tireless, sleepless and substandard assassin droids to augment his security.
Then HK-47 eventually found the smallest of gaps. The senator was ever a creature of habit and would visit a specific mistress once every month and travel there by speeder. The route and altitude he took would never allow a sniper rifle the range or the angle and the senator liked to keep the speeder roof open and feel the wind in his hair. Other assassins had tried to sneak closer during this moment, using jetpacks and even customized repulsor platforms - all of whom had been promptly shot down and counter-sniped by security.
Others saw only failure, HK-47 saw opportunity.
He commissioned a blastersmith and particle scientist, who both worked for Aratech, through a proxy identity to begin development of a long range rifle that would be able to outrange the defenses of the senator.
It took two years and six months, but the two men managed to build an improvement on the old Aratech sniper rifle that extended its range considerably and allowed the plasma bolt to retain cohesion for longer, allowing it to act almost like a slugthrower at great range. It was just enough range for a sniper perch on a building at the edge of the district that bordered the Republican Senate area.
Taking that shot after waiting for the perfect conditions for more than a year was probably the closest HK could say he had ever experienced what meatbags called ‘love’, maybe he had even experienced the Force itself as well.
A proximity warning occurred at that moment.
In less than a few milliseconds his full attention was back on his aquatic surroundings.
He was less than a hundred meters from a giant structure that loomed out of the hazy blue environment. It was buried into the sea floor and towered overhead. A brief scan and calculation indicated it was the north-east support of the mine rig. The sounds of various aquatic fauna reached his audio sensors - sounds a meatbag would generally refer to as ‘eerie’.
His first waypoint was to find the underwater entry and egress port, of which there were four, which was only used when maintenance had to be conducted on the submerged exterior of the rig. He was also well within range of acoustic sensors, so he began to move even slower and reduced the pressure of his footfalls on the seafloor by eighty percent.
After nearly three minutes of ‘sneaking’, the entry door was in sight. There were no visual sensors so his mission wouldn’t be impeded by simply walking straight up to it. He scanned the sides of the exterior door and found the common logic probe slot.
If he had the capacity for facial expression, he’d be smirking at this point.
His left arm came forward and the logic spike embedded there snapped out, and interfaced with the rig’s door circuit.
It took him less than a second to comprehend the architecture of the rig systems.
Another two seconds to compromise the laughably inadequate information security of the rig and further hack the TX droid’s own control over the systems, which took an embarrassingly long five seconds, simply because he didn’t want to alert the pathetic droid that its control had actually been usurped.
Unfortunately, simply a direct brute force cyber attack on the TX droid would also take too long. HK had no doubt of his victory, but it would be short lived as the TX would have enough time to detonate the explosives before it succumbed. That meant he would have to be creative and subtle about it. He found he rather preferred it that way, it would be more fun.
He evaluated what he had to work with in the mining rig’s systems and soon came across the deactivated nodes in the network that represented all the heavy mining and maintenance droids. It was the programming work of roughly eight seconds to bring them all under his control and subtly power them up so their visual sensors were working. He also further augmented it with all the rig’s own surveillance sensors, which the TX was also using to keep an eye out for any potential attack.
It took another few seconds of reviewing the footage to account for 72 B1 droids and 22 B2s of various models. They were all in a patrol pattern that would be rather simple to work around.
HK took control of a tiny MSE maintenance droid that specialized in working in conduits and very tight spaces. Then promptly set it on a course that would bring it to what was listed as Cargo Bay Lambda.
Next, nearly two dozen mining droids were in a storage bay area, where they were all cradled in their recharge sockets. Their internal batteries were all full at this point and could sustain nearly seven hours of hard work. Even more important was the laser bores on their right arm manipulators. A simple control override program, including a rudimentary AI and they could now act as extensions of his own chassis.
The TX droid was at the moment in the primary control room which meatbags used to command the mine’s systems. It was escorted by two B2 Grapples and a single B2-ACM. HK carefully scanned the EM spectrum with his own internal com system, then bouncing and relaying it across the mine’s data interlinks.
There was a definitely pinging signal coming from the TX, which was being sent straight to Bay Lambda.
That at least began to confirm his Master’s divinations.
The MSE droid used a small manipulator to screw open a conduit access port and carefully emerged into the partially darkened Bay Lambda.
From the point of view of the MSE, it was surrounded by rows upon rows of gigantic brown plasteel blast-rated containers, stacked in racks that had shield emitters integrated into them. All of which had been disabled and the containers opened - rendering their primary purpose pointless.
There were only six B1s on patrol here, merely acting to serve as an alarm system rather than pose any threat.
The pathetic cannon fodder were adhering to their patrol route, but were also chattering about their circumstances as usual.
“Uh, are you sure it’s safe to patrol in here?” said a B1 with a yellow patch on its head.
“Of course it’s safe, idiot,” blabbed his red striped partner B1. “These are mining charges. You could dance on them and nothing would happen.”
“Why would I ever dance on them?”
“You wouldn’t, now keep your vocabulator down. The TX could be listening.”
“Why would he be listening? This place is so boring. We’ve been walking up and down these aisles for days! The enemy can’t ever come in here. They can’t even get on the rig.”
“Idiot, there’s Jedi out there.”
“Jedi? Since when?”
“Are you having memory fragmentation issues again?” The Red B1 knocked the Yellow on the side of its head.
“Ouch! Of course not,” retorted the Yellow.
“The TX gave a briefing on it just two days ago.”
“I- I don’t remember.”
HK really wanted to blast some CIS meatbags at this point - specifically those who were responsible for creating this substandard droid trash and not even taking the minor time, effort or expense to regularly defrag their own droids.
The MSE had found a transmitter relay linked to a simple computer and electronic detonator, all packed into one of the open plasteel crates, upon numerous blocks of mining charges. HK had it deploy its eight legs and retract its wheels, then sent it climbing.
The close inspection revealed that the TX was at least somewhat using its tactical algorithms and not succumbing to complete delusional arrogance that it had accounted for every possibility.
The entire detonation setup was fake, a misdirection and a trap to fall into.
HK carefully had the MSE retreat from view under one of the shelfs and pondered the problem. If that wasn’t how the TX was going to instantly respond if anyone attacked the rig, then how would it?
He reviewed the image of the entire detonator setup thoroughly, subjecting it to thorough analysis subroutines. No, hadn’t missed anything, as unlikely as that was.
His attention returned to the TX in the control room. It was now hunched over a terminal and its multi fingered hands were blurring on a touchpad. Why would it use such a primitive means of programming? It was already connected to the rig systems via a logic probe.
HK studied the code and the program it was creating.
Yet more contingencies. It was trying to turn the rig’s own systems into acting as ways to detonate the explosive.
HK decided to humor the thing and deploy one of the tricks his master had showed him; a virtual machine system.
It was the work of two full seconds to code and slip it right under the figurative nose of the TX. It also served to even neatly isolate the tactical droid from the rig’s systems. Now it only had its own broadcasting abilities to fall back on to detonate the explosives.
Now it was just a matter of finding the true remote detonator.
To find the answer, HK simply kept his patience and continued to electronically observe the TX, scanning for the most minor hint of any EM activity that it was trying to conceal. More than likely the hugely obvious data link towards the fake detonator was acting as both diversion and concealment.
It took nearly ninety five minutes of observation and continuously filtering the data through his own analysis before he spotted it.
There, a substring of data that seemingly scattered randomly into the EM environment of Bay Lambda.
He set his pet MSE to begin physically moving in that direction.
Then after another ninety-five minutes exactly, another substring, another reference point.
A ninety-five minute period data pulse would certainly tax the attention and patience of even the most ardent meatbag slicer, though HK had to admit those Jedi Slicers on Coruscant would find that a somewhat quaint notion.
It took waiting for a third pulse before he had enough triangulation data to begin a proper search with the MSE.
It led him to the uppermost shelf along the thirteenth row of the bay. The shelf here was almost touching the ceiling of the bay and HK had to admit it made for an effective hiding place to secure it against most meatbags and even most Jedi. No one would want to climb an entire rack filled with explosives.
Finally the MSE was climbing onto the correct plasteel container and a careful passive EM scan showed a low power transceiver inside it.
HK was not about to underestimate this TX now, so would not order the MSE to just blatantly open the container. Instead he had it carefully crawl around and closely examine the locking and hinging mechanism, including the small touchpad that required an input code to unlock it. There was no direct logic probe access, so he’d have to improvise.
The MSE used its small forward manipulators to slowly work on the edge of the touchpad. Carefully prying it only a few millimeters open with the precision and care only these types of MSEs could achieve, whilst working with delicate circuits, wires and conduits.
It extended its own logic port and its own manipulators began to half-dismantle it, so there could be a direct non-mediated connection. This was likely to lead to a number of voltage problems and even eventually a short circuit that had the potential to fry the MSE’s processors, but it was no problem. HK took control of three more MSEs of the same type and had them converge on the cargo bay.
The MSE snaked its jury-rigged port into the relatively simple circuits of the touchpad and connected directly with the first conductive logic gate it could find. A brief spark occurred, which was absorbed directly into the surrounding plasteel, but HK felt immediately that access had been achieved.
The TX had uploaded a scramble and encryption onto the lock, which HK broke through with a simple brute force attack to its code, when he was certain that the transceiver also wasn’t hooked up.
The lid of the container jumped as its own EM locks reversed.
HK moved the MSE as fast as it could go into the confines of the thing to get at the transceiver.
A quick millisecond scan showed that the TX had not rigged any form of alert or sensors to the locking mechanism itself.
How amateur and basic. Yet he was thankful that the droid had finally calculated that the chance of anyone reaching this far was next to zero and had ended its security precautions.
HK next ordered a second MSE to climb the shelving and enter the box, since the first’s logic probe was pretty much useless at this point.
The new MSE ‘jacked in’ to the computer, as master would say, and HK quickly got to work on a machine code level.
Twelve seconds later HK had so thoroughly spoofed the jury rigged detonation computer and uploaded a virus.
“Mocking taunt: Try and set the bomb off now, trash,” HK jeered.
Now that the primary danger was out of the way, it was time to have some fun.
He wrote and copied a very rudimentary targeting and combat protocol to the heavy mining droids, whilst also doing the same to every MSE droid on the rig. The latter didn’t have anything that could be classed as a weapon, but there were a lot of them and as the master was fond of pointing out, ‘quantity has a quality of its own’.
He removed his own logic probe and opened the outer hatch, stepped inside and began the cycling sequence that would remove the seawater from the airlock. That would’ve rung the entry chime, so to speak, and he knew the TX droid would now be looking through the airlock’s internal visual sensor.
He brought his Z-6 cannon to bear and fired a single shot that slagged the sensor.
The inner airlock door opened and HK stepped forward into the delightful sounds of chaos and battle. It seemed his newly created minions had wasted no time in making themselves useful. Blaster fire and the tinny electric screams of B1s echoed through the corridors.
It didn’t take long to find his first victims as down just a single corridor, two B1s were trying and failing to pluck and bash off the dozen or so MSE droids that were swarming and climbing all over them. The little droids had decided rather vindictively to try to ‘improve’ the B1s - they were prying and cutting open everything that could be pried and cut, trying to get at the internal circuitry.
“Hey, stop, no, that tickles… bad droids!” whined the B1.
“No, no, not that! That’s my…” the other B1’s head popped off. “...head,” It said miserably from the floor.
As highly amusing as it was, HK’s mission did not allow for possible threats to remain. His Z-6 came to bear and two brief bursts of pin point blaster fire made a number of critical new holes in the B1s that ended their substandard existence.
The MSEs skittered off the dead droids and just stared at HK for a second.
“Pointed Query: What are you looking at?” he asked.
They didn’t have speech vocabulators, but they did have a tiny speaker that was usually just meant to let meatbags know when they were underfoot. It was enough for them to quickly chirp their indignation to him in rapid, crude binary vocalizations.
“Assessment: Trying to improve B1s is a waste of time. Order: Now go off and find more victims.”
The MSEs obeyed but were sure to vocalize their displeasure as they were doing it. They pulled in their legs, and zoomed away on wheels.
HK followed the corridor, then took a right turn towards the nearest turbolift.
He could already hear that it was rapidly approaching this floor and would no doubt have the first response of the now virus ridden TX droid.
The lift opened to reveal two B2-ACM droids.
HK was about to engage his shield but found it unnecessary as both B2s stumbled out into the corridor and were awkwardly flailing at more MSE droids who had managed to clamber onto their upper chassis. There was no way for the little droids to actually get through the thick armor, but even B2s had maintenance ports in their lower backs and hips, not to mention the sensor cluster in the left shoulder - which had long since been plucked out.
The B2s walked blindly head first into the opposite wall.
“Amusement: Ha ha. Mockery: Having fun, trash?”
He triggered his Z6, walking its fire from the lower torso to the left shoulder. Rather astonishingly his blaster fire had no trouble penetrating the B2 armor and he left a line of smoking, glowing holes through the war droid’s chassis.
It collapsed to the ground, still trying to fend off MSEs and groaned before succumbing to electronic oblivion.
“Commentary: Most interesting.”
He finished off the second B2 as it tried to aim its wrist blaster towards him.
The MSEs were again rather put off for being denied their fun.
“Negatory: No, I will not stop. Instruction: Keep going.” The droids scattered, chittering in complaint. “Statement: Perhaps I was a bit too hasty in their programming, they are reminding me of… me.”
He entered the turbolift and directly interfaced with its systems via a logic probe. It allowed him to see a status update of the TX as it flailed in a cyber battle against the virus. The virus would eventually lose - he didn’t want the tac droid destroyed in such an unsatisfactory manner - so it had been designed to only occupy and delay.
The lift’s grav systems engaged and he set it to deliver him to the highest floor it could go.
Sixteen seconds later it opened on the fifteenth floor - the first one that was above sea level.
He walked out into a large cargo area, where what only could be described as ‘chaotic bedlam’ was taking place.
Eight large mining droids were engaged in battle with a dozen B2s and two full squads of B1s, using their sheer bulk, manipulator arms meant to move tons of raw ore and laser bores.
“Oh dear,” said a B1, just before a mining droid smashed down on it with an overhead strike, turning it into a flat, sparking pile of debris.
A B2 Grapple died as it tried to wrestle and use its electro pincers to stab through a mining droid’s torso. A fellow mining droid used the opportunity to grab it off its comrade, then use its laser bore to cut the B2 lengthwise from head to waist.
This was not a one sided battle though. As well as HK had tried to program the droids to use tactics, numbers were against them here and the mining droids didn’t have combat rated armor on their chassis.
A mining droid died under the fire of two B2-ACMs, whilst another also died to a thrown grenade from a B1.
“Smug statement: Time to go to work.”
HK engaged his shield and opened fire.
His first burst felled four B1s as he strafed his fire across them.
The nearest B1s and 2s reacted immediately and returned fire.
“Hey, why are you shooting us? That’s rude!” A B1 commented.
HK let his shield absorb the initial return volley and his metal legs pumped with maximum speed as they carried him into cover behind a large shipping container.
He popped his Z6 around it, using its inbuilt visual sensor to aim and fire another burst with no loss of accuracy, destroying the two ACMs.
The surviving mining droids didn’t waste the opportunity, rushing forward with their new max speed of thirty kph, no doubt having quite a few safety governors turned off to achieve it. Their main targets were the remaining B2s and they bowled the lot of them over with their bulk - crashing into them and damaging themselves in the process. Not enough though that it stopped them from using their laser bores to maximum effect, scything through the B2s much like a lightsaber would’ve.
HK stepped out of his cover with a freshly recharged shield and began a steady strafe of fire from his Z6 cannon right to left.
The B1s tried to return fire as they were mowed down, but their shots were either deflected or outright stopped by the shield.
His Z6 ran dry right as the last B1 in the bay died and silence fell.
He let the smoking empty power pack fall out of the cannon and replaced it with a new one.
The two surviving mining droids chittered a burst of binary.
“Compliment: Yes, very well done, my friends. Instruction: Do see if you can open the main loading doors. My master would really like a convenient entrance for her and her meatbag companions.”
He walked to the other side of the bay and entered the turbolift there. It was a shorter journey to the uppermost floor of the rig.
When the doors opened again it was to be confronted with three B2s all groaning and flailing blindly to get the swarming MSE droids off themselves.
He brought his cannon to bear and finished all three off with a sustained burst.
It was but the distance of a single corridor and he now stood outside the large door that led to the rig control room. He didn’t feel like engaging in more cyberspace warfare with the TX, so didn’t try to interface with the door systems.
His leg compartment opened and he grabbed his lightsaber, which burst into glorious humming life, bathing the area in a red glow.
Four efficient, calculated swings was all it took and he had his entrance.
HK stepped into the control room, keeping the saber lit and swiftly scanned the room for any threats, but found only the TX.
“What are you?” it asked simply.
His answer was to take one long step forward and deliver a precision swing that neatly decapitated the TX.
It’s head fell and clunked to the floor, whilst its body just collapsed with no more primary input.
HK picked up the head and tucked it under his arm, before patting it smugly.
“Greetings: HK-47, assassin droid, at your service. Your data will make for a most interesting analysis.”
He engaged his comlink with his master. “Smug Statement: Master, the rig is mostly secured. Only a few B1s remain, but my minions are taking care of that.”
There was a pregnant pause over the link. “HK, do I even want to know?”
“Answer: Of course you do, master. I will provide a full visual record, it will be most amusing.”
“Nevermind, fine, we’re on our way. Try not to cause more chaos than usual until we get there.”
“Indignation: Master, you know I only cause chaos for our enemies.”
“Logging you out,” Master said firmly and cut the comlink.
HK felt rather flabbergasted, “Reflection: So that’s what that feels like.”
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A/N: Hope you enjoyed. Always fun writing HK. Have a great weekend all.