Archive of Our Own ^beta

Chapter Text

"Settle him down here for now,” Todd said, guiding the B1 onto the floor of the barn.

Henry kicked at the straw strewn about the broken droid and inspected it’s worn body closely.

The armor covering one of it’s eyes was gone and one of it’s hands had been torn off. Not at all an easy feat for a human or animal. Yet, it’d been nowhere near a battlefield when they’d found him.

Henry swiped the blond strands of hair from his eyes and scrunched his eyebrows together. “Quite a lot of damage for a droid that wasn’t anywhere close to the others. Wonder what happened to it.” He dusted off his hands and walked to the door, “I’ll set out and find some parts for this old fella, that old battlefield is nearby, there should be plenty of spare limbs for him there.”

“Alright, I’ll clean up the place and get the droid ready for some tinkering,” Todd walked over to a far corner of the barn to get a broom.

“I’ll see you in a bit.”

Henry passed between the towering trees that surrounded their quaint little farm, the tail end of his green coat fluttering with the wind. Rolling prairies intermittently broke the great forests of Antamont—the little planet he called home, the one where he’d been born and would inevitably die. Mountains towered over them thousands of miles away, watching the brothers with a keen eye. Entire generations had come and gone under its watchful gaze. It was a comfort, unlike the battlegrounds plaguing the once beautiful rich green prairies. They were littered with dead bodies both droid and clone alike along with the carcasses of long abandoned vehicles.

It didn’t take long to find enough parts that he deemed satisfactory for their needs. A spare arm here and the torn side of another B1’s head there and his hands were already full. Henry stood atop the hill overlooking the hills in their entirety and took in the sight with a heavy heart.

A thousand glints of scrap metal and white armor dotted the grass fields like metal flowers. All of it the result of hundreds of battles that had taken place on the planet. Both sides fought with a ferocity unlike he’d ever seen before. All for nothing. Neither side seemed to have won. The Confederacy lost thousands of droids while the Republic lost thousands of clones. But it wasn’t the military powers that had lost the most, no, it was the farmers and those who once lived on the planet as shop owners. Thousands of fields were rendered useless by the battles. The soil had been ruined, if not by the metal, then by the Republic—or rather, the Empire’s factories being constructed for military use, further destroying the surrounding environment. The war had produced a blight that bit back at everyone who had been involved in the conflict.

On the short trip back, inside the grasp of the all encompassing forest of the planet, Henry caught sight of their old hover-tractor. It was still embedded into the ground after hitting a mine that had nearly killed him. It was a reminder of the sorts of things they could afford back before the war and everything that had been consumed by it.

Sunflowers had sprouted all over the body of the machine, painting the rusted metal into a yellow-green. His mind wandered as he carried the spare parts through the littered battlefields, or graveyards now. He could still see the faces of his mother and father. In particular, he could almost imagine the way they’d changed over the years, like a plant growing to it’s full length in just a few minutes. From young and hopeful with a cheery expression that came around often, to their withered sagging faces, all light gone from their eyes.

Antamont once held a prosperous future but that had gone away the minute the war had entered the picture. Perhaps it would’ve recovered had the Empire not continued to devour the soul of the planet. At one time, companies from all over were clawing for prospects on the farm planet. Life was good then, there were no worries of war or famine, only of food for livestock and what the evening would bring. Now the war and it’s ensuing carnage was all he could think about. Perhaps even without the war, his family wouldn’t have survived anyways.

They had enough food to survive for the time being but things had begun to look dire. Despite it all, Henry and his brother Todd continued to fight with all their life. For Antamont was their home and it always would be. It was where their family had made a life for themselves over the course of a few hundred years.

Bits of straw crunched under his foot, drawing him back to reality.

“Got some parts, did ya’ get him all set up?” Henry said throwing the small heap of metal and circuits on the ground.

“Yup, looks like he’s out of power and he’s got some wires loose up on his head. Also needs a new arm and some metal to weld his face back together. Other than that he’s all in one piece.” Todd said, brushing off his red coat as he looked over the B1. There was a streak of exposed metal across the droid’s snout as if a thunderbolt had struck him and etched it’s shape horizontally onto the plating of his face.

“You were supposed to see which wires he’s missing, I already saw the arm and face,” Henry shooed him away from the droid to get a closer look.

“Oh.” Todd put his hands up in defeat, his brown strands of hair dangled over his face as he did so. “You were always the one with an eye for technology, not me.”

Henry shifted through the exposed wires around the droids head. ‘What was the order? Red, green, blue, or green, blue, red?’ He thought. Soon enough, his memory corrected itself, “I can get him fixed up. Looks like nothing critical was affected, we’ve got the parts here though, might as well do it now. You get the generator ready to power him up.”

“Already on it,” Todd said, rushing out of the barn.

Henry grinned at the sight of the mostly intact droid before him. They’d gone looking for many years throughout all the battlefields they could find looking for one semi-functional droid, and finally, here was one. It still wasn’t enough to fill the many missing hands they had lost during the war but at the very least they could ensure the farm continued even after their deaths came.

Todd came to mind when he thought of the long years they’d spent since the end of the war trying with all their life and soul to continue the work of several generations. He was sure that without him, there would be no money and thus, no farm, even if sometimes his hardheadedness got in the way of things.

Henry shook his head. ‘Always doing things the hard way, without machines or droids,’ he thought to himself. He could almost hear the buzzing of the laser-saw that had nearly cut his arm off. He snapped out of the nostalgic trip down memory lane once he began thinking of the others.

‘No point in souring my own mood like that.’

For the rest of the day, Henry spent tinkering and troubleshooting the B1. It was in impeccable condition when compared to the scrap heaps left of the other droids. He had some experience repairing all sorts of automata and machines, but none for warfare. Thankfully, there were just enough similarities between standard droids and battle droids to make the necessary repairs and return the B1 back to peak efficiency. His head was all back to normal with the wires stuffed back into place, and he’d replaced one of his arms with a new one.

“Todd did ya’ get the generator going?” Henry yelled from inside the barn.

“Yeah!” Todd said, walking in with the wheeled generator close behind him. “Is he ready?”

“Bring it closer here,” he said lifting the B1 up into a sitting position. He hooked it up and powered the generator on.

Nothing happened.

“What’s wrong?” Todd said, looking over his brother’s shoulder, “Isn’t he supposed to start movin’ around?”

“He just needs some time to charge.”

“Oh, right.” Todd scratched at his head. “If you need me I’ll be in the house.”

Henry looked all over the B1’s body for any sort of indication of a power switch but there wasn’t any. It was here that his expertise ended. They were droids after all. The farm had gone without one for a long, long time. The repairs he’d made were based on hazy memories. He picked up the rest of the parts and set them aside to be put away in case the B1 was to malfunction.

For the rest of the day, Henry and Todd went about their usual duties: collecting the crop, getting it into storage, and tending to the animals.

Soon the day came to an end with no activity coming from the droid.

“Did he power up yet?” Todd said, looking over Henry’s shoulder back towards the barn.

“No, I don’t know if I fixed him up right or not, maybe I messed with the wrong wires. Never dealt with a battle droid before. We’ll see tomorrow, I guess,” he said. The grass underfoot crunched with the shift of his weight.

The two went to their bedroom situated in the farmhouse overlooking the area. It sat in what acted as a small clearing in the sea of trees that surrounded all of their lands. On the eastern end were the fields where they planted all of their crops and past that was the main barn where they kept all their animals, which weren’t many.

It was a cozy location for the brothers and their small humble business.

At first, Henry couldn’t sleep, even with the peaceful sounds of nature he’d grown accustomed to over the years. The thought of the droid waking up in the middle of the night haunted him. It didn’t help that it was a droid built for war. They’d locked the barn doors and shut them tight but even with that, he was worried. Questions barraged his mind but as each one came up, he shot it down almost immediately, or at the very least tried to. Eventually the exhaustion of over-thinking things finally overcame him and he fell sleep.

R-DA9@B1:~$ Booting main systems...

R-DA9@B1:~$ Testing for discrepancies…

R-DA9@B1:~$ None found

R-DA9@B1:~$ Attempting connection to control module…

R-DA9@B1:~$ ERROR: module could not be found

R-DA9@B1:~$ Booting to local memory

R-DA9@B1:~$ Main system modules loading…

A myriad of checks and errors appeared on the B1’s optical receptors. R-DA9 ran a few more tests on himself as procedure called for when such errors manifested. He continued with more attempts to contact the control ship as his memory returned.

Step two in the recovery procedure was to gain his bearings and find a Confederate recycling depot. He scanned the room with his night vision enabled. There were barren stables at either side of him and—

Something crunched beneath his hands. He looked to the ground and accidentally picked up a handful of torn-up dried grass littered all around the building. A scan showed that the material was straw, nothing to be worried about, but nonetheless, it drew his curiosity.

‘Why is there straw in a building? Do they not clean this place? And...where am I?’ R-DA9 thought to himself.

Chirping and rustling came from all around the building as if he were being watched.

His head swiveled from side to side with a soft hiss. Directly to his left was a pile of hay bales, stacked four high inside one of the empty pens. The rest were empty, save for the straw on the ground.

‘Have I been captured?’ All of his internal processes froze as an unsettling question crossed his mind. ‘What happened?’

The recovery of his memory was just about finished. He peered into his memory unit. There were still files stored on it. All of them dated from several years ago. He opened each of them, one by one.

And in that same instant, his past came back to him, at least what was left after his previous memory wipe.

He clutched at his head, scratching another set of lines into his face. A searing pain enveloped the upper half of his head like a hand sculpted from molten lava gripping his processor with all it’s strength.

It was all too much.

He recalled the grappler droid’s grief upon realizing the pointless nature of their fighting and the fear that struck his mind before he powered down one last time. He relived the serenity as he relished in the brief days of peace he had left, knowing there was no way to avoid the inevitable. He felt the sharp ridges of bark on a tree as he stalked the battle taking place nearby, grieving for the droids that would never feel the liberty of freedom. He trembled in fear at the thought of powering down as had been the fate for the grappler droid.

Every memory from before Antamont were of various battles. In some he had fallen and in others he’d left unscathed. But none of that mattered now.

R-DA9 struggled to get up, a pull on his body left him fighting to stay balanced. He looked down to see a thick cable leading directly to a bright yellow generator a few feet away. The battery percentage on his display indicated he only had three percent charge. Thus, he opted to sit back down. There was no point in wandering around the building anyways, it was most likely locked.

‘I wonder, will they torture me?’ R-DA9 shook his head at the thought. ‘I still don’t know if I’m captured or not yet.’

Seeing as there was nothing to do but contemplate his current situation, which almost always led to over-thinking and a waste of energy, he powered down into sleep mode. Perhaps in the morning he could he figure out what to do, but one thing was certain...

He was alive.

Against all odds, he was alive.

A warmth blossomed within his chassis as if his hardware was overheating, but there was no pain, only an aching that pulsed with life.

The joy of freedom and of life was beginning to grow within him once more.

Chapter Text

Henry creaked the barn doors open, careful as can be. His worst suspicion was that the B1 had gone back into combat mode or had somehow escaped and was wreaking havoc somewhere out on the farm.

He let out a sigh of relief at the sight of the B1 still powered down in its position at the far end of the barn. His tan-colored chassis stood out like a sore thumb against the brown wood of the barn and the yellow of the straw below.

“Is he up?” Todd asked from behind.

Henry jumped in fright. “Don’t do that.” He ran a hand down his face. “No, he isn’t up just yet.”

“Maybe that repair you did broke him,” Todd said, patting Henry on the shoulder.

“Let’s just wait another day, I need to see him—”

Before Henry could mouth another word, the B1 suddenly began to move on it’s own like a statue coming to life.

Todd let out a yelp, nearly stumbling onto the ground in fright.

The B1 steadied himself on the ground as he pushed himself onto his feet.

Henry cautiously approached it.

“Hello there, uh…” Henry looked back at Todd for a moment. The expression of abject horror on his face drained Henry of all fear and replaced it with amusement. “My name’s Henry and this here’s Todd.”

Todd awkwardly waved his hand.

The B1 froze for a moment before reciprocating the gesture.

“Hello, my name is…” R-DA9 thought for a moment, translating name to unit number in his head. “My name is R-DA9.”

R-DA9 stood from his position but stayed at the back of the barn, still suspicious of the two.

“That’s no name, just a unit number,” Henry walked closer but immediately stopped after seeing the B1 take a step back in response. “We tend to give all our droids a name. Doesn’t feel right callin’ you a number. How about you choose one?”

Todd finally conjured up the courage to step out from behind Henry. “What about Johnny like old Johnny boy from the market.” He turned to Henry. “He always wanted a son didn’t he? Well he can have one in spirit now. Was a good man, hard worker.”

“Johnny,” R-DA9 said aloud, feeling the name in his own voice. “I...accept this replacement.”

“Alright Johnny, we have last names too but we’ll worry about that another time. Listen here, we fixed you up and gave you life again so in that way you’re indebted to us.”

“Of course,” Johnny stepped forward, intrigued once again by the notion of living in a world where war and fighting was absent.

“These grounds are a farm and we have quite a lot of work to be done here and we’re getting a little too old. You’ll be doing some manual labor for the time being.”

“Wonderful, I will do anything but fighting,” Johnny stepped even closer, nearly a foot away from the brothers.

“No need for fighting around here, not anymore at least,” Henry fought against the memories from the war that surged into his head.

“We haven’t had another worker around here in...years,” Todd glanced to Henry, afraid he’d hit a nerve. “We’d always have a celebration for newcomers back in the day, how about we throw one for Johnny.”

“Under normal circumstances I’d say no since our supplies have been down, but since we haven’t had a new worker in such a long time, I’ll agree to it,” Henry said.

“A celebration? For me?” Johnny said.

“Of course. I don’t think you’re capable of eating any food but we’ll throw you a small little party then we’ll get you set up for work tomorrow. Besides, we haven’t had a break in our work in who knows how long, it’d be great for us to finally take a load off,” Henry cautiously took another step forward, wary of Johnny reeling back in fear, but he didn’t. Instead, he stepped forward.

“Thank you...for giving me a new life,” Johnny said.

A surge of heat flowed through his circuitry. It was the third time he’d ever experienced such a thing, the first time being the day he was accidentally set free from the control ship, and the second time being yesterday.

“We’ll be thanking you soon, welcome to the family,” Henry closed the distance between himself and Johnny. He clasped Johnny’s hands into his own, shaking them vigorously. The human gesture confused him at first but he returned the gesture nonetheless.

‘I have another chance to live,’ Johnny thought. His circuits were alight and his CPU burned hot with too many artificial emotions for one droid to feel at once. ‘I’ll do things right this time.’

Johnny was sat at the end of a long wooden table marked with the scratches and drawings left behind by all of it’s past recipients. It served as a memorial to every life—human, droid or pet—that had once been part of the farm’s long and tumultuous life. A life that was beginning to wear thin thanks to the Empire’s death grip on the planet.

Henry was caught off guard by the wave of nostalgia that washed over him as he set his eyes on the table, noting the marks for the first time since the end of the war.

For a moment, he thought of all those lost during those times. All their laughs, tears, and blood that had stained the house in times of celebration. He longed for the past to return but he knew deep down, things had ended for them long ago. It was only just now that reality set in.

This was most likely the last celebration they’d ever have.

“Farmers like us would usually have a big feast for newcomers but seeing as food is...not in abundance right now, we’re only having a little,” Henry said.

Both brothers sat on either side of Johnny who awkwardly looked between the two, unsure of what to do with the small sticks of fire lit before him.

“What am I supposed to do with these?” Johnny pointed at the candles. The glow of the fire shone against his metal fingers, exposing the many scratches he’d attained over the years.

“Well, usually you blow them out but we’ll do that for you. Don’t worry about this all being unusual, this is a very special occasion,” Henry replied.

“Special?”

“Yes, you will be the last inheritor of the farm. It’s been a long tradition of passing down these lands from generation to generation, hundreds of years have passed since the beginning and now it will all culminate with you,” Henry said in a shaky voice, attempting to swallow the tears that were threatening to fall.

At that moment, Johnny felt the same warmth from before. He logged the memory of it, wishing to dissect it further in the future now that he had one.

“Let’s get started, we’ll have lots to teach you tomorrow,” Henry moved closer to Johnny.

“Oh I love starting it, may I?” Todd said from across the table.

“Why not, you’ve always been the one to start it since you were a kid.”

Todd laughed. “That’s right, I’m surprised you remember,” He took an exaggerated breath. “And one, two, three.”

Johnny looked between the two brothers, a strange melodic sound came from their mouths as they spoke or whatever it was that they were doing. He was still quite confused as to what he was supposed to do but he trusted the farmers to lead him to achieve their goal of...celebrating. Something about the air and atmosphere felt just right to Johnny. His sensors told him the air quality was decent but nothing amazing. The weather at night was cool and allowed his systems to operate at a more efficient rate. Perhaps it was that. Nothing but the coolness of the night.

‘No, these farmers, they’re what makes things...feel right.’

He still couldn’t quite put words to the feeling other than something that evoked a comforting chill in his central processing unit. It wasn’t an ache, a pain he’d grown accustomed to over time, no, this was the cool hand of the galaxy sapping away all that uncomfortable heat from his processor.

Before he knew it, they were done making those melodic sounds. Henry leaned forward, blew the candles out, and promptly clapped.

“Welcome to the Sol family, Johnny!” Henry wrapped an arm around his shoulder and brought him into a side hug. Once again, Johnny was confused by the gesture at first but awkwardly reciprocated the hug and did the same with Todd.

“I gotta go get your work gear ready,” Todd said with a slap of his leg.

“We can do that tomorrow, what we’ll do today is set up Johnny’s room. For now, let’s finish our food,” Henry said.

“Oh right, forgot. That song always gets me excited, makes me forget what I was doin’,” Todd happily devoured the rest of his steak.

“What do I do now?” Johnny said after witnessing both brothers quickly finish their food. A sight that greatly bewildered him.

“You can help us get your room set up, follow me,” Henry waited for Johnny to get up before he began walking out of the kitchen through the entrance at the opposite end of the table.

As they moved down the hall, Johnny took a glance over the several pictures framed on the wall of more humans, each varying in size and shape.

“It’s common courtesy for us to make visitors feel right at home by providing for all their needs but you have to understand, we’re getting old. We’ll need a little help this time around,” Henry said over his shoulder.

“I understand,” Johnny replied.

They passed by several storage rooms filled with all sorts of equipment and crates full of crops. Johnny looked on in fascination wondering just what every single little gadget did out in the field and what those yellow stalks of beaded strings are and what they’re used for and why they look the way that they do and—

“Here we go, now I’ll warn you, this place hasn’t been cleaned in quite some time so you’ll have to excuse the dust. Don’t worry, we’ll be cleaning it today, it shouldn’t take too long,” Henry said, stopping at the door to the room. Todd was standing beside him still giddy with excitement from their small celebration and even more so to be doing something new for once. All those days of collecting and storing crop had finally begun to bug him after so many years.

A plume of dust shot out as the door swung open. Much of the room was left in an orderly manner. There were towels left on the bed which was already made but covered in a coat of dust. There was a dresser on one side, directly across from the bed. On either side of it were two smaller chambers. One being the bathroom and the other being an old closet with abandoned trinkets from long before the war, when the farm still operated on hand made tools.

Henry stepped in and surveyed the area. “I wasn’t expecting it to be this clean.”

“Mom tidied everything up one last time before we shut this room off don’t you remember?” Todd replied leaning on the doorway, one hand on his belt.

“Huh, I don’t actually.”

Meanwhile, Johnny had moved further into the bedroom. He took one swipe at the dust on the bed, his childlike curiosity still getting the best of him. He examined every speck. It was fascinating to think that this dust could be the last remnants of a bygone era or of a life that had ended long ago. His sensors told him it was useless, that the material was not useful whatsoever for battle, but he didn’t care, he would imprint every bit of information that he could into his memory.

“Let’s get started then.” Henry clapped his hands together, sending a plume of dust straight into his nostrils, promptly inducing a sneezing fit.

Johnny, frightened by the noise, reeled back in surprise, “Are you alright?” he scurried over to Henry.

Todd stifled a laugh.

“I’m fine Johnny, just sneezed that’s all,” Henry said chuckling a bit.

“Sneezed?”

“Yeah, look we’re living beings alright. We have more...functions than you and some that we can’t explain, now let’s just get to cleaning already.”

Johnny dusted off his hands, careful not to make the same mistake as Henry.

‘What interesting beings.’

Chapter Text

Out in the fields, the days grew hot even before the first rays of the sun pelted the skin of Antamont and before the first chirps from the morning bird song echoed into the air. The morning chill served as a brief respite from the battering to come. Every day, the brothers endured it all the same, working through the sweat and only taking breaks when the heat would become unbearable.

On one such morning, Johnny was following Henry around the fields as he explained each crop. A flock of birds flew overhead, their song drawing Johnny’s curiosity for a brief moment. The birds had sung much like the brothers had the day of his celebration. ‘But why? Why do organics do such meaningless actions? Or is there a purpose I do not know about?’

Another pair of distractions came, first the glare of the sun briefly blinding him, then a warning message that appeared in his view. ‘Warning: Temperatures reaching limit.’ Henry was still giving his lecture at the moment, oblivious to Johnny’s current state.

“Uh Henry,” Johnny said, interrupting him.

Henry turned. “Yeah?”

“I am beginning to overheat, I’m not sure I can stand out here for much longer.”

Henry swiped the sweat off his forehead. “Ah, I hadn’t thought of that being an issue.” His attention went past Johnny, back towards Todd still at the farmhouse. “Come to think of it, our astromech used to have the same problem.” He stepped out into the grass, avoiding the tilled dirt beside him. “C’mon.”

Todd’s hat was down on his face as he sat face up on one of the chairs on the porch. His legs were fully extended and a deep snore rattled the floor beneath them. Johnny reeled back in confusion, “What was that?” His long head swiveled around looking for the cause of the noise.

“Todd’s snoring, I’ll explain it later. Don’t worry it’s nothin’ to be worried about,” Henry said, shaking Todd by the shoulder.

The hat fell from Todd’s face as he pushed himself upright in the chair. “What’s wrong?” He said, his voice gravely.

“Johnny’s starting to overheat. Do you remember what we did for Connor?” Henry said.

Todd’s face lit up. “Connor! How long has it been since—” He took in a gulp of air. “Nevermind. Poor bastard.” He stood. “Yeah, I remember. We gave him that hat. I don’t remember it working.”

Henry leaned against the porch railing behind him, “That’s right. It was the hat.” A sigh escaped him. They’d played this song and dance with their droids for so long, they couldn’t let Johnny in prime condition fall to something so frivolous. “What can we do for Johnny?”

Todd rubbed at his chin. A moment later, his eyes sparkled as an idea came to mind. He snapped his fingers in what he believed was his moment of genius. “Strap some metal block to him. I heard something about that sorta thing helping these machines.”

Henry shrugged his shoulders, “Sounds good. We’ll try it.”

Todd squinted at him. “Aren’t you supposed to know more about droids than me?”

“I only know the basics.”

Johnny interjected. “Uh, I was thinking perhaps I could use clothes like you two.”

“Hmm,” Henry crossed his arms. His face scrunched up, “What clothes would you use?”

“I’m not sure,” Johnny replied.

Henry looked to the ground in thought. “That might work….but let’s try the block first. We can use scrap metal from those battlefields.”

“I’ll go grab some,” Todd said, hurrying down the stairs.

Henry watched him disappear past the old barn, the ends of his long red coat trailing behind him. “Looks like he just wanted to get out of working.”

“Perhaps,” Johnny looked at Henry, ‘He didn’t seem to have liked me mentioning clothes. It almost appeared as if he was in pain. I need to do more research…’

A few minutes later, they strapped the makeshift heat sink, made from the carcass of an AT-TE, directly onto Johnny’s back where his combat pack would usually go.

The heat warning from before disappeared from Johnny’s internal console. “It worked.”

“Great, let’s get back to the lessons,” Henry said, clasping his hands together.

Henry walked along the fields all while teaching him the ins and outs of collecting grains and fruits off of the crops. He first tasked him with doing a bit of manual labor to get him started. The work combined with Henry’s lessons was enough to spark the fire of curiosity in Johnny’s head.

In the span of an hour Johnny fired a barrage of questions onto the brothers. They were simple, easy to answer, but for each one there came another four.

“How exactly do the plants grow? Why do they need water? Why do they need the sun?” Johnny had said almost too quick for his own vocalizer to voice.

His childlike curiosity warmed Henry and Todd’s old hearts. All of it was reminiscent of their own time as children learning to work on the farm.

To say Johnny had broken the monotony of daily life for Henry and Todd would be an understatement. It was as if he’d turned back the clock ten years, a depressing thought for the brothers which they swiftly swiped away.

Henry tilled the last of the soil, ignoring the beads of sweet flowing down his neck and face. A hundred feet away, Johnny was collecting the last of the Muja fruit.

Unsurprisingly, he was much faster than both Henry and Todd combined. Even their old Astromech would’ve had a hard time keeping up with his pace.

“You’re doing good Johnny! Move on to the Celto once you’re done!” Henry yelled over to him.

Johnny gave a thumbs up in response. He’d caught on quite quickly to human gestures and mimicked human movement with ease. His hunger for knowledge proved to be a boon for both himself and his newfound family. Within a day he’d learned the basics. He was almost too quick for Henry and Todd. It almost felt blasphemous. For the both of them, growing and treating the crop was a spiritual endeavor, nothing that could be rushed, and it was in this ceremony that Johnny faltered.

“Picking, you can do that quick, that’s fine but planting them, feeding them, that’s where you have to take your time,” Henry explained to Johnny after a day’s work. “You did good today but you’ve still got lots to learn. You learn quick though, I have no doubt you’ll have everything down soon.” Henry patted him on the shoulder.

“Thank you. I want to learn, I really do,” Johnny replied.

“That’s good, we’ll keep teaching you and, hey, when you’ve got everything down then you can move on without us. You have a connection to the outside world don’t you?” Henry said. They walked side-by-side back to the homestead. The sun shone it’s orange hue across the forest, casting rays of light across every tree and plant in view. Johnny looked on in fascination, his face turned to a shade of orange as a splinter of light honed in on him.

“A connection? I don’t know. I will try to see if I do.”

“Well, if you don’t got a connection, we have an antenna so you can connect to the galactanet. There’s plenty to learn about the galaxy from there,” Henry set down his tools outside the main building. Where there would be grass, there was instead a patch of dirt from the many years of Henry putting the same tools down in the same spot. Johnny set a bucket of Muja fruit down beside him.

“I’ll look into it when the time comes,” Johnny said.

Inside the homestead, Todd had already cooked up a quick meal for himself and Henry.

“What’s on the menu today?” Henry said.

“Same old, same old,” Todd replied.

Henry mumbled something under his breath before settling down to eat. Johnny awkwardly sat at his side, unsure of what to do. Sheer boredom drove him to look through his systems, trying to make sense of all the old memories, however painful they may be.

And the first one he choose was exactly that: a shock of pain.

‘I am…afraid,’ He heard the grappler droid say as if he were still by his side, clutching hold of his hand in a desperate attempt at comfort.

‘He could still be out there,’ Johnny thought to himself, ‘He’s offline but maybe I can fix him.’ His CPU told him otherwise. The statistical chances were low and it would take far too long to find his body out in the backwoods of Antamont. It was a miracle that his own body hadn’t been torn apart by nature.

‘I could retrace my steps, replay my memories. Maybe that galactanet thing could help me repair him.’

Henry nudged Johnny on the shoulder. “Are you alright Johnny? I’ve called your name four times now.”

“Oh, yes I’m fine.”

“How’d the lessons go?” Todd butted in.

“Swell, I give him a week to get everything down,” Henry said.

Todd smiled wide, the thick bushel of a beard on his face bristled with life. “That’s great. Soon enough I’ll be the one to teach you. I’ll show you how to do everything the old fashioned way, without any of this new technology.”

Henry sighed. “Go easy on him, would you?” he stood up before Todd could argue with him, hurriedly excusing himself to clean his plate.

“Without using technology?” Johnny said.

“That’s what I said,” Todd replied, a smile still plastered on his face.

“That would be an interesting challenge. But don’t I count as technology?”

Todd chuckled. “Oh you’re more than that Johnny. You can speak and think and feel, can’t you? I wouldn’t say you’re ‘just technology’. And I’m sure you’ll like my lessons.”

Henry shuffled back into the room. “OK boys, time for bed. Good job today, Johnny.”

It felt strange for a droid like himself to have his own room. All his life he’d only ever been used to sharing a charging station with the rest of his fellow battle droids. That was the closest thing to a room he’d ever gotten. He stood in front of the door to his personal quarters for a good while, soaking in the fact that he was alone, with no commanders, no other droids, and with his own belongings to boot.

He stepped in, relieved to see no Confederate insignia plastered on the walls.

The air grew crispy at night, his temperatures lowered with it. It was a perfect medley of conditions for his battery to become more efficient which meant more free time to explore. The area wasn’t all that spacious but it was more than enough for him. He rummaged through one of the dressers, still wanting to solve his overheating issues. It also hadn’t occurred to him that he was technically naked in the eyes of Henry and Todd.

‘I must look proper for them and earn their respect.’

They’d brought him back to life after all, it was only right to follow their traditions and please them as best he could. Along one side of the drawer were several hats of varying sizes and shapes. One was a strange triangular shaped hat. There was one that resembled a canopy that was spread to it’s max width.

‘This must be the one they tried to use on that astromech.’

Then at the very bottom was a black circular hat with a protrusion in the middle that resembled a plateau from Geonosis. His local database told him it was commonly referred to as a space-farer’s hat and it was the exact same one the brothers used. It held a strange appearance to his photo-receptors but no predictive model could tell him how Henry and Todd would react. Perhaps joy or surprise. There was no way of predicting such a thing. Humans and, by extension, organics were very complex creatures.

‘I’ll see what happens with this one.’

Next up in the drawer were jackets. There were several of varying colors, Johnny went with the first one he saw. A brown rain coat that was beat up and visibly used with several stains along the lower cusps. It extended down to his thighs with buttons in the middle. He picked out his choices and hung them on the outside handles of the drawer. Nothing else drew his eye.

There was a closet tucked away on one side of the room full of old broken machines and other defunct equipment.

‘Perhaps this could help me repair him,’ he thought, thinking back to the grappler droid still out in the woods.

But then the galactanet came to mind and with it, a million other thoughts and questions about the war.

What exactly happened? Did the Confederacy win? Or was it the Republic that won? Or had both sides lost?

Another warning appeared on his console as his CPU began to heat and drain his power.

Henry had been nice enough to put a charging port beside the bed. Droids didn’t sleep but he’d feel guilty for not using what he’d been given. He laid down onto the bed taking notice of just how spongy it was. It nearly felt as if he were lying on air. Not wanting to waste any more power, he plugged himself into the charging port and eased himself into sleep mode.

…

But the grappler droid’s last words still haunted his mind. He struggled to power down.

It had been a mistake to look at that file.

“Why? Why do you…do this?” he’d said.

It was easy to see why even back in that moment. Everything had become so clear after losing connection to central control. The war was a waste. He would die just as quickly as a bolt was fired out of a blaster. He would be abandoned just as quickly too. Nothing was being achieved through the war effort, not that he could tell anyways. The feeling of freedom was far more tantalizing.

“It’s getting very...dark. The core is...no longer returning...my signal. I do not want...to go off-line. I am afraid.”

The confines of his metal body suddenly seemed too cold and rigid for his mind floating out in the cool air of the night.

He hadn’t realized it back then.

The grappler droid had lost connection to the control center. He could be free like him.

‘I have to find him. He’s a droid like me, the only connection I have left of everyone else. He was afraid and I was the cause of it all. The cause for his very death and suffering.’

He set a note for himself: ‘Find the grappler droid and restore him. It’s the best I could do for causing his death. Perhaps he could help on the farm…’

With that, his mind finally settled down and his systems powered down into sleep mode.

Henry had nearly hit the mark when he’d said Johnny would get everything down by the end of the week. He was off by just one day.

Johnny moved through each part of the field with relative ease. His memory never failed to remind him of the varying processes of planting, cultivating, and collecting for each specific crop.

“Just don’t think you know everything. Me and Todd here have been learning our whole lives and we still are. It’s a lifelong experience. No doubt it’ll be the same for you too, no matter how fast you learn,” Henry explained to him during their break. “Anyhow, I’ll move on to teaching you about the livestock next week. I’ll let Todd show you all the junk he does for now,” he said with a chuckle.

“The...junk?” Johnny asked.

“Oh you’ll see what I mean when the time comes,” Henry said.

For the rest of the day, Johnny began to settle into a routine, flowing through every task with full focus. He enjoyed the leisure of the work, a much needed rest from the constant worrying of death he’d endured in the Confederate army. Of course, all of that was behind him and now merely served as a reminder of the life he no longer needed to live.

After some point or another, his body almost felt as if it began operating on autopilot, moving through the field as if he already had years of experience under his belt. With the ease that washed over his mind came the same nagging questions from the night before, pestering his train of thought to the point that it began slowing him down. When the afternoon came, he decided to take a break with Henry and Todd for once. They were no doubt surprised.

“Whadya’ need a break for?” Henry asked him while relaxing in the shade of a Hanava tree.

“My joints are acting up and I’m beginning to overheat...and I’d like to go on the galactanet like you told me,” Johnny took a seat beside Henry.

Henry smiled. “Ah, I see. So you’re just making up excuses to go on the net?”

“No, I—”

“That’s alright. I did set it up for you to check out. Besides, Todd was the same when he first started helping out, ‘cept he would go out into the barn to try and repair all of our old equipment. Just get back to it in ten minutes or so,” Henry said, laying his hat over his eyes and leaning against the trunk of the tree.

Johnny’s fans hummed in satisfaction. Now he could begin to decipher just what had happened to the Confederacy.

His first foray into the galactanet proved to be a confusing one. Everything about it was entirely foreign to him. His fans whirred, buzzing deep within his body as he deciphered the structure and layout of the ‘net’ as Henry had called it.

He scanned through news post after news post, taking in all the events that had happened at the end of the war. The Sith reigning victorious, the rise of the Empire, the Jedi supposedly going extinct—all of it. And still it all seemed pointless to him. But none of that was of any importance anymore. It had been four years since his death. Four years since he’d last seen his brothers in arms. Four years since he’d last seen the grappler droid.

‘I survived out in the wilderness for all that time, he just has to be out there.’

He searched for anything related to battle droids. There wasn’t much, only old news reports that were made during the war and years-old rumors of a Geonosian building his own personal droid army. No schematics or leaked blueprints as he’d hoped.

He grew frustrated. There were trillions of battle droids in existence made by thousands of different factories across the galaxy and yet not a single blueprint had surfaced. It taxed his CPU just thinking about it. Soon enough, he returned to work, spending the last couple of minutes of his break pondering just how lucky he’d been to have Henry and Todd stumble across his body so far out in the forest.

The farm was quite extensive, covering enough land to necessitate the need for small speeder bikes at times. Henry had given him one for his own personal use that very same day. It was beat up and discolored from it’s original brown color but it was most certainly usable. It was a wonder to him how the brothers managed to get so much done without a droid helping out on the fields. Not only were they lacking manpower but they tired after only a couple of hours or so. He didn’t know much about the human body but he knew they aged and slowed down with time. The more he thought about it, the more he realized how terribly lucky they’d both been in finding him.

By sundown, Johnny had collected the same amount of crop the brothers would harvest in two days. An exciting improvement.

“How exactly do you work this quick?” Todd said, his eyes wide upon seeing their bins full of Muja fruit so early in the season.

“I simply do not stop,” Johnny said, plopping the bin down onto the dirt.

Todd couldn’t help but chuckle at his blunt response. “I wish we’d found you sooner. Now we can think about planting even more seeds down next season. Maybe even buy ourselves another droid with all that extra profit…”

Henry set his tools down beside the two. “We’re still running low on food and you’re already thinking of buying another droid when we haven’t broke even for the past two seasons.”

“Sorry, I guess I’ve still got that entrepreneur spirit in me,” Todd said, scratching at his head.

Henry sighed, “I don’t even know if the market will be open this year”

“The market?” Johnny asked.

“Oh right, haven’t told you about it have I? It’s where we sell all of our food. Back before and even for some time during the war we were making plenty of profit to keep upgrading and producing more and more crop. But ever since the Empire’s come around, they’ve taxed us for every move we make. People have been leaving for a long time now but it’s gotten even worse now that the Empire controls the planet. Everything that comes in and out has to be checked by them. We stopped selling to other planets for awhile, only producing for the locals but most of ‘em are gone now. The Empire seems to be our only customer nowadays and they like to take everything, including most of the money we make and most of our produce,” Henry said, his eyes cast down to the ground. He couldn’t help but think back to the times before the war. When their entire family had still lived on the farm.

“Now don’t get all down, Henry. We’ve been through tough spots before, we can get through this one,” Todd said, patting him on the shoulder. He looked over to Johnny. “You have to understand, we’re not goin’ anywhere. We promised mom and dad that we’d look over the farm for the rest of our lives. We will live and die on this planet, whether the Empire is here or not. When we’re gone, it’ll be all up to you.”

Johnny chose his next words carefully, sensing the shift in the brother’s moods. “I am not sure if I can do everything on my own.”

Henry seemed to liven up. “You most definitely can but...once we’re gone, you can decide whether to stay or leave. It already isn’t looking good as it is, we can’t be sure how bad it’ll get. Just help us out while we’re still here, that’s all we ask for.”

Johnny nodded. “Of course. It is thanks to you two that I am alive again. I will do what I can.”

The brothers took a moment to cool down before heading back inside.

A day later, the dour mood from the previous night still hadn’t gone away. The lurking hopelessness of their future hung about the brother’s every action, wearing them down more than the tedious work of harvesting crop and tending to the animals.

Todd hung about the edge of the fields where all their crop was planted, watching Johnny work. In him, he didn’t just see the hard-worker he’d always hoped to be, he also saw their future. Whether it be on this farm or not, he would carry on their legacy one way or another.

He smacked himself across the face. ‘Right about now would be a good time to start teaching him,’ he decided. He set off and pulled Johnny from his work, taking him out to the old barn where he’d first powered on.

Henry had been right about Todd’s teachings. As much as Johnny wished to please him by following his lessons, he couldn’t help but think just how foolish it was to revert back to old mechanical devices that were hand-powered or required frequent maintenance. Todd seemed to have sensed Johnny’s misgivings. “You have to have something to fall-back to if one of our more modern machines goes down. You don’t want to solely rely on them ‘cuz if they give out, we’ll lose time, and time is money out here. It’s all about self-sufficiency you see? These old ‘pieces of junk’ as Henry calls ‘em are what keeps the farm going when everything’s broken and trust me, things can get bad considering how old these machines are.”

It was strange, he’d never considered how machines could break down. Nothing in the Confederate army had ever broken down. Perhaps it was because he was never alive long enough to see their tanks and weapons decay. Their equipment was always either fully functional or completely destroyed. Whatever the case, his thoughts on the matter quickly changed after Todd’s explanation. Suddenly, his lessons were just as important as Henry’s. Soon enough he got the gist of what each old ‘piece of junk’ did and how to operate it.

“You are one of the finest workers we’ve ever had here, Johnny. Not even the astromechs could’ve kept up with you!” Todd said with a hearty laugh, lightly patting him on the back.

“Thank you,” Johnny replied, his temperatures running high from the elation of being praised. It was almost addicting.

He was put back to work on the fields soon after, doing the same as the day before. Unlike the brothers, he enjoyed the repetitive nature of his work. Even when he drove one of their more advanced machines designed to plant as many seeds as possible in a short span of time.

The day soon came to an end and another fruitful day with it.

He stood at the foot of the dresser in his room, contemplating whether or not he should wear his outfit the next day or perhaps wait a little longer to ask the brothers. During a brief period of research on human behavior, he’d found that putting on clothing or using anything that belonged to another person usually meant great offense, especially without permission. None of it made sense to him but he’d made a note of it nonetheless.

‘I’ll have to ask them directly,’ he decided.

The bed groaned under his weight.

Every night, he wrote down another list of questions to ask the brothers for the next day. This time, he wanted to prod a little further along the line between being offensive and innocent questioning.

‘They must understand, I am no human,’ Johnny shifted to his side, staring at the outfit still hung on the doors of the dresser. His photo-receptors honed in on the front pockets of the jacket he’d chosen. A piece of paper peered from inside. He whipped his head around to the door.

No sounds came from outside the room. On the other end, he could only hear the chirps of insects and the cracking of sticks from the larger furry animals stalking outside.

Cautiously, he extended an arm out to the pocket and grabbed at the paper.

It was neatly folded into a small square. He pulled it open, working his fingers to prevent anymore damage to it.

Hastily scribbled words filled the page.

‘Henry. Todd. I know this isn’t how you expected to find my final words but it wasn’t how I was expecting to go out either. I’m due to leave soon. Don’t worry, it’s just the way the galaxy works. I would rather be moving with the wind than against it. Move on as quick as you can, no point in worrying about the past, not in these times. I am proud of how fast you two have grown and adjusted to life on the farm without us to guide you. I wish I could’ve taught you more but you two are smart enough to figure the rest out. I just wish we’d had the time to spend one last evening together, laughing and eating at the table like...’

The words trailed off and abruptly stopped.

‘Strange,’ Johnny thought. ‘Who wrote this?’

A creak slithered through the house’s floorboards.

Johnny rocketed up to his feet with his back to the door. His hands folded the paper back into a square with such speed that his finger joints rose in temperature by a few degrees.

He waited for the sound of the door creaking open but nothing happened. Once no further noises croaked through the house, he lied back down with his eyes on the entrance.

‘None of this helps with the questions I have. Now I need to make another list…’

Chapter Text

Today was a special day. Not special as in a holiday or something Henry or Todd had planned out for him. In fact, work had been unusually slow with the brothers hardly speaking with him at all. Henry had put off his teachings on the livestock for another few days. He’d been so thoroughly impressed with Johnny’s speed in collecting their crops that he almost went back on his word and thought of going out to salvage another battle droid. Johnny had insisted he go out on his own to do just that but both of the brothers had suddenly turned on him, forbidding him from doing so.

‘To salvage another battle droid…’ Johnny repeated the words in his head as he lay in bed. He lazily shifted his head towards the door to his room again.

‘Should I tell them about him?’ He thought it was obvious. Yes, of course he should. They would help him bring in the grappler droid and that would be the end of that. But his combat protocols interfered.

He wanted to trust them, but he didn’t. They weren’t his squad-mates. They weren’t droids like him. He couldn’t send signals to them. He couldn’t ensure that they wouldn’t go against him as a clone or any other organic would. His CPU envisioned them at the end of a blaster barrel, not at his side, not with his back turned to them.

Yet, he knew he couldn’t entirely trust other battle droids either, not even the grappler droid himself or any of the other B1s. Had they known he’d defected, they would’ve tried to bring him back into line just as the grappler droid did.

‘It’s not their fault. It was just their programming making them obey commands from the mothership,’ Johnny reasoned. He brought his hands up to his photo-receptors, recalling the injury he’d sustained from his brief fight with the grappler B2. His fingers curled into the palm of what should’ve been his missing hand. He brought it up to his head and felt for the hole in his face plating but there was only metal, as there should be.

‘They wouldn’t like it if I disobeyed them, but I’m not one to obey commands anymore.’

The bed creaked at the slightest hint of movement. Indecision crept into his every move but his logic circuits pushed him to stand. The brothers were deep sleepers, he surmised as much by the symphony of nocturnal noises hissing and buzzing from his window. He stood in one swift motion like the ripping of a bandaid and trudged along to the door. His photo-receptors lingered on the scratch marks that had eaten away at the wood around the doorknob from so many years of use. Just how many more years until it would be completely eaten away? Would he still be around by then? Johnny shuffled in place at a more troubling question. Would the brothers still be alive at that point?

‘I will serve them for the rest of their lives and I will serve this farm until these buildings collapse from old age. Nothing less, nothing more.’

Outside, the chirping of insects and the howling of the wind continued to wade in, bathing him in a sea of noise. For being such an old building, the house made few creaks even under the stress of the strong gusts of wind.

‘They shouldn’t be able to hear me.’

A groan from the door immediately debunked his previous assessment of the house’s integrity. The hallway outside was thankfully vacant. Still, it didn’t hurt to check. A single function within his system caught his attention.

‘My sensors,’ Johnny thought. ‘I haven’t used them since…’

Once more the image of the grappler droid came to mind, barging in and disrupting all processes. An overwhelming eagerness overcame him and dispelled all his worries. He marched straight out without bothering to check for the brothers.

If they’d heard him, they would’ve done something by now.

An internal map of the house guided him past the kitchen where they’d celebrated his arrival, past several storage rooms full of equipment, only stopping at the living room where three couches lay lonely as ever. A gust of wind from outside blew through the crevices outlining the entrance. No creak accompanied him to the outside as he stepped into the cold of the night.

Out on the horizon, the trees vaguely pierced the darkness with their needle-tip tops like a CPU’s pins pointed towards the sky. Everything else was obscured by the monstrous form of the abyss, all consuming and all encompassing. Only the porch, the outline of the fields and crops off to one side, and the single porch light to his side served as a beacon in the dark.

Johnny brought up his internal map of the entire farm in his memory unit and set a point on his current position. Visual data would not be enough to make the trek back. In his search for more useful functions within his own body, another feature presented itself.

‘Night vision mode, right. I forgot I had it.’

The world turned different shades of white with the brighter parts being closest to him and the darkest further away. Still, the trees in the distance were just about visible.

‘Where should I begin?’ Johnny asked himself, ‘He could be anywhere.’ Old memory files resurfaced, bringing his last encounter with the grappler droid to the forefront of his mind. There was a brief glitch in the first minute of his oldest memory but his processor was quick to fill in the blanks. ‘That’s right, the road where I stepped on a mine.’ He almost began the march forward but another thought hit him. ‘But I don’t know where that was. It could be in any direction from here…’

Another few re-plays of the same file brought the answer.

‘The moon on the first night, when I first felt what it was like to be free, it was facing towards the battlefield.’

Up on the sky, plastered in nearly the same position as it had been on that night, the moon winked down at him, goading him forward.

‘I promise, I will find you. I will make things right.’

His feet and memory guided him through the darkness, taking him far from the farm until the porch light was only a small glint on the horizon.

If he were to get lost and power down, the brothers would most likely never find him again.

‘So be it. If I don’t find him then I’ll stay there and power down beside him. His death was my fault, I must bring him back.’

The woods at night were not much different from the day. Except the noise. Hundreds of tiny chirps and croaks and groans came from all around him. His combat protocols activated at the sound of so many animals as if he were surrounded by an enemy.

‘This is nothing but a distraction. You and I will escape death and thank Henry and Todd for saving us from it.’

There were no dirt paths or any signs of civilization whatsoever for miles. But yet he trudged forward, breaking sticks underfoot and keeping track of his position through his internal map.

An hour passed before the doubt began to creep in. It was only when his battery power hit eighty percent that the first cracks formed in his mind.

‘Maybe I should’ve waited a little longer, planned this out more thoroughly…’ Johnny thought, finally coming to a stop in the middle of the forest with only trees all around. Every now and again the land rose and dipped like the waves of an ocean. ‘No, I would’ve just kept delaying it. Just a little while longer and I’ll be there, I’m sure I’m close. Those two couldn’t have carried me far.’

A steep rise brought him to the apex of a small hill. Almost by instinct, he laid his hand against the bark of a tree nearby. Before him there were rolling plains devoid of any trees, but more importantly it was full of destroyed vehicles and droids.

‘This is it,’ Johnny swiveled his head from left to right, taking in the scenery. Everything was almost identical except carcasses replaced the once living beings forever entombed in the battlefield before him. ‘The cliff! It’s nearby.’

He ran off to the eastern end of the plains, delving straight into the forest once-more. Each step was a repeat of the same path he’d taken so long ago. Time seemed to warp under his foot until the darkness turned to light and the phantom sounds of battle waded in from somewhere westward where so many had churned away in the wheels of war.

At first, his freedom had been a sweet treat to his processor, one now free from the heat of programmatic perdition. But time went on, the days flew by, and the pointlessness of it all came crashing down just before the end. Then the flowers began to bloom, those of vibrant healthy colors that distracted him from it all. Their beauty had entranced him. Never in his short life had he been allowed to observe the smaller things of life. The flowers were just the beginning of his curiosity and it had lasted for all those days he’d spent wandering the wilderness of Antamont. Farming was his calling. It just had to be. Those flowers with the most brilliant yellow coloring he’d ever seen had saved him from his own programming and he would repay their kindness in full. For what other purpose in this life would he have other than to fight in wars, the very thing he was built for?

Johnny shook his head. ‘We’ll do a fine job tending to the farm.’

His legs began to move on their own until he spotted the stump of a felled tree with the cliff-edge not far from it. Peering down, he came face to face with the very droid that had attempted to kill him for desertion.

“I forgive you,” Johnny said out loud to the grappler droid’s defunct body. “I forgive you, because I know that that wasn’t you. It was the Confederacy, not anyone else.” Johnny surveyed the area, at first not finding a direct path down in view. His night-vision drew outlines on the ground around him, painting a slope just a few feet away. “I’m coming for you my friend, we will make a new life away from any control ship or commanding officer.”

The grass crunched as he made the journey down. He came to a stop just before the B2’s body with his shadow looming over him. The grappler had remained the same albeit with several flowers growing on his arms and legs, their roots like cobwebs over one side of his abdomen and one of his shoulders as well. There were claw marks near his head and water stains peppered throughout his entire body. His paint was faded, appearing much lighter than he remembered.

‘He’s a little worn-down. I hope he is repairable…if not, I will find a way to repair him. Now to get him out…’ Johnny felt like smacking himself. All he had on hand to aid him in carrying the grappler was a roll of rope Henry had given him in anticipation for his lessons on managing the animals. He’d forgotten to take it off his waist. ‘I guess this will have to do.’

He tucked his arms underneath the grappler’s arms and pulled with all his might. The body shifted towards him a few inches at best. ‘Too inefficient.’ Shifting in position, he moved his legs to be between the space of the grappler’s arm and torso.

Johnny untied the rope from his skeletal waist and held the loop in one hand. He extended his snout up to look back up the path where he’d come from. There were no trees in the middle of it, only on the edges and directly ahead but they were too far off to tie a loop around them.

Winding the rope between both hands, he wrapped it around his torso twice and pulled at the remainder to tighten it further. As he stood over the grappler droid, the true extent of the damage to his chassis became clear. Flowers were embedded deep into his body, their roots reaching in between the tiny cracks and crevices of it.

‘If I’ve learned anything from Henry and Todd it’s that nature is a powerful and beautiful thing. You and I will work in tandem with this organic life. We won’t destroy any longer.’

The roots of each flower hugging his chassis cracked and splintered as Johnny pulled them from the ground and tore through their stalks. It pained him to destroy the natural flora of this planet but it was a necessary sacrifice. With renewed determination, he took the other end of the rope and wound it around the grappler’s narrow abdomen.

Now it was time for the difficult part. The rope around his chassis groaned as he walked as far as he could until it was stretched to it’s limit. He took up position on all fours, facing away from the grappler.

‘This is going to consume a lot of battery life, but I should be able to make the rest of the trip...I hope’

For every smash of his fingers into the dirt, his processor gave him a reward for the destruction being wrought by his own hands. And it was only then and there that his logic snapped in two. Battle was what he was built for, he couldn’t escape it, in every little movement he was doing now he was appeasing the programming embedded deep into him. Despair nearly overcame him, but he pressed onward.

Johnny shook his head. ‘There is no war anymore, I don’t have to go back to that. Henry, Todd, they’ll show me how to create and nurture life, not destroy it.’

He slipped and slid in the moist dirt of the small hill that threatened to swallow him whole in its muddy mouth. His fingers pulled up thick roots, the crunching of their segments like satisfying screams of agony to his audio-receptors.

‘These broken roots are a necessary sacrifice,’ he reminded himself, shoving the violent thoughts away. It was a relief to find he was at the top of the slope just moments later. His lower half was caked in mud and turned to a shade of brown. Behind him, the grappler droid left a noticeable trail of disturbed grass. If a ship were to pass by, they would notice it.

Johnny banged his hand against his head. ‘I’m still thinking like I’m in war. I have to stop. That’s in the past now…’

The words felt hollow even in his own head. Yet, he still trudged onward across the level path. His processor’s unwillingness to move on from the past was no excuse to leave his only droid friend behind. Another hill stopped him in his path, forcing him to lean back on the heels of his feet and peer up at the stars where even the mountains faced down on him.

‘This is alright. I’ve lived through war, I can get past a simple obstacle…’

He repeated the process, clawing and hooking his feet into the dirt until his servomotors whined and hissed in agony. Behind him, the scraping of the grappler’s chassis against the ground served as the only distraction from his internal processes. That and the thought of what the grappler droid might act like when he awoke, of the adventures they would have, of the life as farmers they would be allowed to live, all thanks to Henry and Todd. Their faces spurred him on.

Once more, he reached the top of the hill. Next came the prairies where his fellow battle droids had gone to die. Looking out onto the fields, he lingered for a moment, allowing himself to grieve for all the B1s destroyed on a planet nobody would remember.

‘Antamont. I won’t forget you and all these droids that you cradle in the skin of your body. Please, treat them well.’

The plains provided a brief break from the climbing. Still, the grappler left a path in his wake though he tried not to dwell on it.

Next came another series of rolling hills and past that, the sea of trees.

Johnny assumed his position on the next slope. ‘All I need is battery power and my joints and servomotors, nothing else. If this is what it means for him to escape death then so be it. I will get this done.’

And so he pushed and pulled and fought with the ground, tearing chunks of dirt and whole systems of roots from the guts of the dirt below. The noises from the insects never ceased even as the ground cracked beneath Johnny’s metal hands. Instead, he added to the symphony of nocturnal noises around him with great thuds as pounds of dirt swept past him like snippets of water flowing down from a dying river.

Time ceased to exist for him. He focused all his efforts on pushing forward with his photo-receptors focused on the crest of the next hill. His joints had begun to stiffen with so much dirt and fragmented roots and leaves stuck in them. It was only until he’d made it to the last of the rolling hills that he stopped to clean them. He used the very tips of the grappler droid’s blades to clean the hard-to-reach areas of his joints and swiped away the rest.

Johnny patted the grappler droid on the arm. “You see? Even your blades can be used in a way that doesn’t harm anyone else. In fact, I’ll make sure you put those blades to good use cutting the muja fruit and celto and whatever else we’ll need harvested.”

Peering behind him once again revealed the trail of overturned grass he’d left.

“That’s all we need,” Johnny said, desperately tearing his attention away from the sight. “Just a restructuring of our view of this life. That’s all.”

Two slopes were left for him to climb. Then it would be onto the forest that lay beyond it. Another strain on his processor and joints. Internal system monitors read fifty percent battery power left.

‘Plenty of battery left to get him back.’

The second to last climb went smoothly and formed an adequate distraction for his processor. But that soon ended with the final hill to scale.

At this point, his body went on autopilot much like when he would work out on the fields. With the freeing of some processing power, the same ideas from before returned to haunt him.

He didn’t want to think about it. How he’d imagined waking up in the middle of the night, his combat protocols taking over his body, sending him back to the battlefield. Or worse yet, sending him to the nearest organic to terminate.

The climb. There was something about the climb that had sparked it. His fight against the ground—against gravity, it felt no different than a firefight between himself and a clone. Killing, marching, shooting, that’s all he knew, that’s all he was supposed to know. Every time he ripped the fruit from a tree or stalk, it felt the same as a kill. That’s why he liked farming after all.

‘No!’ Johnny thought, shaking his head. The dirt below had begun to crumble sending him a few feet back down, ‘No, I don’t want to go back. That’s not who I am. I’m not a battle droid anymore. I’m like Henry, like Todd. A farmer—someone trying to do work that doesn’t kill or injure another!’ He slammed his three fingers into the dirt, stopping his fall. His servomotors creaked with the weight bearing down on them.

Deep down, the truth stung him through his own logic circuits. No matter how much he tried, he would still be a battle droid, as long as his programming still contained hints of his old combat protocols. ‘The war is over! I’ll forget everything about it, and start a new life,’ He reached up, and hauled himself over the apex of the hill. Still on all fours, he climbed the rest of the way.

Even as he dragged the B2 back down the path where he’d come from, he couldn’t help but feel the bitterness of the lie. The dirt on his body only poured salt on the wound as past combat encounters came to mind.

He tasked his CPU to kill the thought over and over again, until it finally disappeared. For the time being, anyways.

Joy filled the hole of that thought thread. The grappler droid was now back on the farm, where he could repair him. And one day, he would power him on and bring him back to life just as the brothers had done to him.

Johnny glanced down to his new droid friend. ‘I’m passing on the kindness they have shown to me. I hope you will do the same.’

On the outskirts of the farm, he could see the faint outline of the barn where he had first awakened.

‘That should be good. They don’t go there often and the straw should cover you up.’

The body of the B2 left a trail of disturbed leaves, but he would correct that soon enough. Johnny creaked the doors open and pulled the grappler to the very back, leaving him behind a stack of hay bales with straw spread across his chassis. Although his bulky body would still bring attention to him if he were to be discovered by Henry or Todd.

A battery power indicator appeared on his photo-receptors.

‘Ten percent, just enough.’

He took a light jog to his room, disregarding his creaky door and squeaky bed as he plugged himself to recharge.

Processes from his combat protocols still lingered in his CPU. He dusted off the dirt and grime from his body as best he could. The rest he would clean away with a bucket of water he’d prepared in one corner of his room.

In a brief moment of freed up processing power, he came face to face with the lie from before.

He was no farmer. He was a droid built for war. It was the only conclusion he could come to, and how could a droid escape such a thing as logic?

He scraped at the dirt stuck to his chassis harder until the scratching took on the crunchiness of a rock being pulverized. Frozen in place, he was assaulted by the same notions from before.

‘I don’t want to go back. I don’t want to kill. But my programming calls for it. Henry, Todd, they don’t know a thing about coding. They can’t change me, and neither can I. No, I’ll have to find someone else outside of here to reprogram me. But I still have my debt to repay here.’ He swiped the last of the dust off his legs and feet. ‘Yes...I can’t and won’t fulfill my primary directives until I repay my debt. That should do. I’ll hold off on eliminating hostiles and taking objectives until then.’ He settled into a comfortable position on the bed, satisfied with his own logic. ‘It will take years for the brothers to age and die. I have plenty of time.’

A few seconds passed before he entered sleep mode.

Chapter Text

The last of the Banthas scampered back into their enclosure the biggest of all the pens with its length extending far into the outskirts of the farmlands.

A bantha child hopped around its mother in excitement for their soon to be served lunch. Johnny was behind them, poking at their furry behinds with the blunt end of his vibrospear. With the last of the banthas in, he closed the wooden gate behind them.

“Good work, Johnny. I’d figured the Banthas would’ve been scared of you but it looks like the exact opposite,” Henry said, watching from atop one of the fences near the enclosure. “That little one likes to bite me often, in fact. Can’t figure out why.”

Johnny straightened out his vibrospear and shrugged. “I don’t know either. If it were to bite me, all it’s teeth would break. Should I stay away from the smaller ones?”

Henry nodded, the blond strands of hair on the sides of his head fluttering with the movement. “Just to be safe.” He smiled, ruffling his beard in doing so. “You’re already thinking on your own, I’m proud of you Johnny.”

“Thank you, I try my best,” Johnny said, looking out into the bantha herd roaming through the fields like giant furry ships.

Henry hopped off the fence, a muffled groan escaping him as his feet made contact with the ground. Even now only a few days after his activation, the brothers were showing their age. Data from the galactanet gave him ample estimate of their expected life time given the conditions they were currently living in. Seventy years was the average, but Johnny couldn’t help but worry. Just how longer did they have left? It hadn’t even crossed his mind to ask for their age given the flurry of information being thrown his way.

‘Another question to be added to my endless lists.’

“You always do a fine job.” Henry sauntered over to him and led him away to another enclosure set up in a grid-like formation at the northern tip of the farmlands. Stumps of felled trees dotted the end of the farmlands which Johnny figured was the reason for the fences in this enclosure being much higher. Though the animals themselves were tiny and featured hind-legs.

Off past the enclosure, the withering structure of the old barn caught Johnny’s eye. Neither of the brothers had discovered the B2’s body. Yet. He’d played out the scenario multiple times within his head, straining his processor in doing so and most certainly causing a few periods of extreme paranoia.

Henry’s voice eased him back out of his own thoughts. “Next up are the Ozoti or Trippers as I like to call them. The name explains itself.” He waved his hand in the air. “Anywho, they’re small and can jump a few feet into the air. They try to escape often so keep a look out for them, especially when they try to trip you, little tricksters. They might seem easier to herd but they’re not, trust me.”

“Of course I trust you, do not doubt that,” Johnny said, glancing at Henry.

Henry chuckled, leading him onwards to the trippers’ pen. “Just a figure of speech, that’s one thing you’re having trouble with but that’s alright. You have plenty of time to learn.”

Johnny clutched his vibrospear tighter. Just the fact that he had a weapon in his hands signified the amount of trust the brothers were showing him. He didn’t quite agree with their sentiments. His combat protocols lingered at the back of his mind, calculating the distance and the speed it would take to kill him with a simple swipe of his neck.

No matter how hard he pushed against it, the violent soldier in him never ceased to intrude his thought threads. It was always there, that monster lurking in the deep, ready to pull at his feet and sink him into that darkness he’d fought so desperately to escape from. Even worse, there was a gnawing ache scratching at his mind, one last duty to fulfill that involved searching for a Confederate outpost or depot to return to the front. In no circumstances would he do so, the war was over anyways. But it persisted and nagged him interminably. And the worst of it all was the blood-lust—the hand of his own programming dragging him to fulfill his purpose, to kill all organics in the way of his objective.

Johnny killed the combat process, feeling it linger within his CPU.

‘I can’t, I won’t kill him. He’s—he’s my squad-mate! I’m indebted to him. He saved my life,’ he reasoned with his combat protocols. ‘I can’t turn on my own allies even if he isn’t a droid.’

The process started again, but it’s previous instructions had changed. It turned next to the animals.

Johnny tried his best to ignore it, as he usually did.

His mind wandered to the grappler droid. Every day since he’d rescued him, he contemplated telling the brothers. ‘He’d be useful on the farm, cutting all the crops and collecting the fruits. Maybe he wouldn’t be as fast as me but he’d be more efficient, I think.’

Johnny stared at the back of Henry’s head. His blonde hair flowed like the waves of an ocean.

‘But he didn’t like it at all when I brought up the idea of finding another droid like me.’ Johnny thought, ‘Is he afraid?’

If he was, he had good reason. They were machines of war, capable of killing as long as their batteries were charged and their programming unchanged.

‘But here I am farming and herding the animals.’ The night of the grappler droid’s rescue came to mind. ‘If it feels like killing to collect fruit and plant seeds then so be it. As long as my CPU is satisfied and as long as I don’t go back to war.’

They came upon the southern edge of the animal enclosure. Johnny zoomed in on the Ozoti. Brown fur covered their bodies and their sharp ears pierced through the air like the twin antennas of an insectoid species like the Geonosians. Their hinds legs appeared thin but powerful given what Henry had already told him and the fact that they were the biggest aspect of their body.

The group of Ozoti were dispersed around the exterior of the greater enclosure—a piece of the lands that were partitioned off for all the animals to graze. Some of the Ozoti fed on the grass below, others ate seeds out of a wide feed bucket hanging off one of the fences.

Henry brought two fingers to his mouth and whistled from high pitch to low.

All of the Ozoti turned to him at once and moved as a single unit towards him.

Johnny cocked his head. Never had he seen animals act so similar to a platoon of battle droids like himself. For once, curiosity overpowered his detest of war.

Henry turned to him, his face indicating a contemplative demeanor. “Johnny, can you whistle?” He awaited his response in anticipation.

Johnny vocalizer crackled with white static before a high pitch metallic whine came out at full volume.

Henry covered his ears. “Oh yeah, you can whistle! Just don’t do it so loud next time!”

“Affirmative!” Johnny replied.

Henry rubbed at his ears. “That’ll scare away the animals if you do it like that. Work on improving.”

“I’ll start now,” Johnny replied. The whistle emitted from his vocalizer was much easier on the ears the second time around and the sound was almost melodic in nature. Bird songs made a fine base for his whistle.

“Better, now start herding in the ones that got loose.” Henry pointed to a few Ozoti that had hopped off to the outer edges of the grazing area.

Shepherding the few loose animals was simple enough, he simply had to poke at them with the handle of his vibrospear instead of the blade. Though a nagging thought kept telling him to flip the blade over and begin clearing out the perimeter.

Johnny shook his head and watched as Henry closed the gate to the enclosure, mumbling something about getting more feed.

‘Maybe this would be a good time,’ Johnny thought, loading a text file within his system.

He hesitantly reached out and tapped Henry on his shoulder.

There was a single flicker of a moment where he could see the outline of clone armor and the raging battle still going on out on the fields, and with his weapon in hand he would eliminate the hostile with ease.

Henry’s face appeared and broke the illusion. “Yeah?”

Johnny’s vocalizer blurted out white static, still shaken up by the sudden glitch. He pushed through, imagining moist dirt under his fingertips instead of the cold steel of a blaster’s grip.

“I do not mean to offend but“—he pulled a folded piece of paper from a cloth bag wrapped around his waist—“If you don’t mind me asking who this—“

Henry snatched the paper out of his hands and stuffed it into his pocket. “Where’d you find that?” His face contorted into an expression unrecognizable to Johnny’s photo-receptors.

A very subtle movement caught Johnny’s eye. Henry’s arms jerked a few millimeters at best, something no organic could possibly perceive. But he had. A blaster was suddenly in his hands and the need to shoot at the enemy came with it. Johnny flinched, terminating the thought as quick as it came, but it was persistent, constantly beating out his CPU as he killed the process over and over again.

Johnny internally sighed. ‘And just when I thought I’d gotten control of it.’

“It was inside a coat stored in the dresser of my—the room where I recharge,” Johnny said, mindful of his words.

Henry looked away, back towards the farmhouse. Todd was driving around his speeder bike plowing through the dirt on his own.

“My father wrote it, that’s all you need to know.” Henry looked into Johnny’s stoic eyes. “Don’t go prodding into things that aren’t yours.”

They stared at each other for a few seconds. Henry finally broke sight and gestured for Johnny to follow.

‘I don’t understand much about organics but sometimes they are very expressive.’

The insects were once again singing their usual tunes. Somewhere nearby a bird chirped relentlessly and the howling wind joined their song, weaving through the empty spaces of their tune.

Johnny dug himself deeper into the bed of straw and hay-bales he’d hastily constructed at the rear of the old barn. Beside him, the grappler droid laid still as ever. Even with the wind and the birds, the rustle of the dried grass under his body still sounded awfully loud to his audio-receptors.

Using the lessons learned during the day, he lowered the volume of his vocalizer.

“I will repair you, I promise. How long that will take, I don’t know, but I’ll do it,” Johnny whispered, his voice disappearing within the sea of noises outside. “I need you here. You’re the only one left out of all those that died out there.” Paranoia continued to creep into his processor, leading him to run a brief sweep of the area with his sensors. Once he’d confirmed the area was clear, he shifted to be on his knees and took a gander at the grappler’s entire body in a futile attempt to make sense of his inner workings.

His metal digits scraped over his abdomen, searching for any loose bolt or panel. Frustration tampered with the electricity flowing through his body. ‘Now I don’t know where to start, again.’

Shifting through his memory unit, a single set of tools in his room came to mind.

“I’ll be right back,” Johnny whispered, clambering out of his spot.

Minutes later Johnny was hovering over the grappler with a medley of tools in his hands. The first was a servodriver, seemingly made to pick and prod at the plating of the grappler.

‘Henry didn’t say much about this thing, only that it’s ancient but still serves its use.’

He poked and prodded at every crevice and panel he could find on the grappler’s body from front to back.

Eventually, only his head was left for him to check. It was embedded into his torso just as with every other B2.

There was a hint of burn damage towards the top of it with scorch marks around the top edge of his head. His menacing photo-receptors stared straight into his own.

“I’ve never looked at one of you B2s this close before,” Johnny whispered, taking a moment to take in his features. “I can see why the organics are afraid of droids like you.” He shuffled around to look at the top of his head. Several wires were exposed along with some parts of his internal circuit boards. “This doesn’t look too bad. The wires were the only thing burning up, I think.”

Fiddling around with his exposed wiring didn’t bring him any closer to deciphering the layout of his body.

Internal temperatures rose sharply as he pushed the grappler away and slammed down onto the floor, his arms resting on his knees as he sat contemplating.

‘What do I do?’ Johnny thought. ‘The galactanet doesn’t have anything about…’ His head swiveled as he looked up to the ceiling of the barn as if he were looking for visible radio signals in the air. ‘They don’t have anything about battle droids, but they do have information about other droids.’

He scrambled back onto his feet and grabbed handfuls of straw, throwing them atop the grappler droid in a hurry. His footsteps carried him back to the main farmhouse and finally to the comforting embrace of his personal quarters. Within seconds, he was back in his bed hooked up to the charging station with a cable running directly to his abdomen.

‘I don’t need to sleep like organics do, I can do research all night long.’ His internals nearly rumbled upon connecting to the galactanet. For the rest of the night, he devoured every bit of information he could find on the inner workings of a typical humanoid droid. By the time he’d finished his research, the sun had come up and the familiar sounds of a hissing shower head welcomed him to the morning.

‘I won’t be able to help you today, my friend, but I will repair you even if its the last thing I do.’

With that, he jumped to his feet and marched out for another day of work.

Chapter Text

The days grew impossibly warmer, reaching to temperatures that Johnny surmised would surely start a wildfire and abruptly bring his new life to an end. But on the first day of his fourth month on the farm, a torrent of rain fell down on the lands and saved him from what he believed was his certain doom.

Johnny shuffled in his seat. Beyond the wooden porch railing, its green paint almost fully chipped off, the storm rained down throughout the lands with no signs of stopping. Puddles had formed in the clearing in front of the farmhouse. Past it to the east, the crops were lined up in rows and the water flowed in small but violent rivers through the irrigation system.

Todd was sat at his side and tapped lightly on his shoulder. “Look closely Johnny. I’ve shown you the system, told you how it works, now you get to see it in action.”

Johnny zoomed in with his photo-receptors taking notes on how the water flowed in different directions but in a controlled manner between the rows of plants. He extended his legs out and crossed his arms, mimicking Todd. His photo-receptors stayed trained on the water. “It would be better if I could get out there.”

“Oh no, no. We don’t know if you’re water-proof or not. Don’t want you shorting a circuit,” Todd said, his voice almost taking on a caring tone.

Johnny tilted his head. “Todd, I’ve already told you, my chassis is water-proof, it says so in my system information report.”

Todd pushed himself back further into his seat and shook his head. “Wait until Henry comes back, he knows more about modern tech than I do.”

It was reassuring to know Todd was truly worried for him. Guilt overcame him. He’d spent all those hours fighting against the vile touch his own combat protocols while the brothers had done nothing but treat him with the utmost respect. It felt as if a blight of rust had overcome his processor, corrupting it to the very core while the brothers stayed pure and showed selfless generosity.

Johnny settled deeper into his seat, not wishing to inflict more damage to his own psyche. The brothers still had no clue about the internal war he was fighting, one that perhaps would never end.

Before he could sink deeper into his depressive state, Henry came sprinting back in with an umbrella over his head. His blonde hair had turned a darker shade with the ends of them being wet. He settled down beside Todd.

“All the animals are in their housing,” Henry said with a sigh.

Todd thumbed over to Johnny. “D’ya know if Johnny here is waterproof? He says his uh—system thingy shows that he is.”

“All droids are water-resistant. What I’m most worried about is him rusting. So much water at once will only accelerate the process,” Henry explained, sinking further into his chair.

A series of sonorous hums escaped Johnny’s internals. It felt nice to see both brothers putting so much effort into ensuring he wouldn’t die so quickly. Of course, he was under their servitude and they were only guaranteeing he wouldn’t rust to get the most utility out of him, but it beat serving the Confederacy—staying trapped in the loop of combat, death, and rebirth.

Johnny sat up, an idea forming in his head. “Would it be fine if I wore clothes to protect against the water?”

Todd nodded, his hat nearly coming off with how loose it hung off of his head. “Sure, why not?”

The pitter-patter of the rain died down to a more gentle saunter across the rooftop. Outside, the puddles were no longer growing in size and the irrigation system slowed down to a much more manageable speed. A few stray drops of water traveled down to Johnny’s feet, their bodies turned yellow with the porch light.

“Sure but uh...what clothes?” Henry said, leaning forward, staring straight at Johnny. His blond hair flowed down from his head and rested on his neck, spreading out like a squashed fruit.

Johnny’s CPU spiked in power. His reaction to his question regarding the items in his room had been met with a negative response before, there was a fifty fifty chance that the same reaction would happen again. He sat up, mimicking behavioral patterns relating to confidence in organics. “There’s a dresser beside my charging port. I could use something from there.”

With a sudden shove at his chair, Henry pushed himself onto his feet and opened the front door. “Show me,” he said, gesturing for Johnny to head in first.

“I’ll be out here,” Todd said putting a hand up as Johnny passed by.

The floorboards creaked with the sudden weight of Johnny’s feet, his steps heavier than usual. Behind him, Henry’s footsteps were clear as day and louder than the lulling patter of the rain on the roof.

‘Scan the area,’ his protocols ordered. ‘The enemy could be watching, could be plotting against you. Organics are not to be trusted, they’re to be gunned down like the clones.’

Terminating the thought did no good. It had been too long since his last encounter with an enemy and several hours had passed since his previous fight with his own programming.

‘My own CPU is turning against me. Nothing on the galactanet is helping,’ Johnny thought in despair. Everyday he felt his systems yearn for another fight, one last mission to complete, another target to obliterate. He’d even asked Henry if he could go out hunting but he only gave him a distracted ‘maybe’.

At the very least, he needed something to keep his mind distracted, sitting watching the rain wouldn’t do him any good.

Once inside his room, Johnny gestured at the outfit he’d picked out on the dresser.

Henry took a glance before lowering his gaze to the floor. “Huh, that’s funny.” He fiddled with something in his pocket.

“It’s not quite the same outfit but that jacket and hat is what my dad would wear almost everyday.” He lifted up a photo to show Johnny. An old man stood side by side with a woman about the same age. He had a smile on his face and his hair was a wood brown unlike Henry which was not as long. Henry’s hair flowed down in locks down to his neck while his father’s reached all the way down to the top of his back.

Johnny looked between him and the picture, noting the similar structure of his father’s face and the same beard that extended from his side burns. His eyes were just as blue as well.

“It was just a coincidence. I only picked the clothes that I thought would please you,” Johnny replied.

“Well, you hit it right on the mark, Johnny,” Henry said with a laugh. He looked back to the outfit with a sigh, scratching at his beard. “Go ahead and wear it. That’s how he would’ve preferred we use his old things. Always was a practical man, never let a thing go to waste even when things weren’t so bad.”

The sudden shift in Henry’s demeanor caught him off guard. It didn’t help that the glow from his eyes had slowly faded away.

“Don’t worry, I’ll maintain it well,” Johnny reassured him. He swiped the dust off the brim off the leather hat and placed it atop his head. “What do you think? Does it suit me well?”

The brim was nearly blinding him with how far forward it was on his head.

Henry adjusted it further back. “There you go.” He took a step towards the dresser and handed Johnny the brown leather coat he’d chosen.

Johnny stood up straight, now fully dressed up. The coat extended down to his thighs, with two pockets on the front. The hat was pure black and sat straight on his head. He opted not to button up the front. “How do I look?”

Henry gave him a thumbs up. “Now you look like a real farmer.”

A few adjustments were in order for his outfit. First he pressed the coat tighter against his skeletal body, then he rolled up his sleeves as he’d seen Henry do many times, and finally he adjusted the middle to cover more of his droid body.

“I’m sorry for bringing up old memories,” Johnny said once he was finished.

Henry put a hand up. “That’s alright. He died unexpectedly. At the very least, he wasn’t killed during the fighting.” His face scrunched up at the memory of the war and all the pain it had brought. He sat down on bed, his hand absentmindedly feeling at the soft blanket below.

Johnny stepped closer to him. “I...I wish I could’ve helped back then but I was only sent here recently. Even then, I was still connected to my mothership for most of the operation.”

“Oh don’t worry about it. Nothing you could’ve done. My sister was killed by a stray blaster bolt. It was out of nowhere. We had an uncle and aunt that lived close-by as well. They were much closer to the battlefield than we were. Both were killed by an artillery blast. After that, the rest of my family, my cousins and whatnot, left the planet. They were all scared that they’d be next to die. We’re lucky nothing killed either of us,” Henry said, looking past Johnny.

His processor warmed as he sought every bit of information he had stored about human emotions. “My fears aren’t the same as yours, but I can understand them to some degree.”

“Fear?” Henry furrowed his eyebrows. “You feel fear? Well, I guess that makes sense, but…why?”

So many new emotions were being displayed on Henry’s face and yet he understood so few of them. The lack of knowledge drove him to scan Henry’s face and compare it pictures he’d saved of human facial expressions. “I am unsure. And yes, I can feel all the same emotions as you do. I don’t remember much about each of my lives, but ever since I was reactivated I’ve felt fear.” He stared at the floor as Henry did. “I was lucky to have been disconnected from the mothership after an explosion damaged my communications array. I – we were all forced to march out even if we were afraid of dying. It’s part of our programming.”

Henry face scrunched up further. Johnny registered it as disgust.

He scoffed. “This war, took away everything and brought pain even to droids.” He ran a hand through his wet hair. “And now we’ve got the Empire—see, this is why I don’t like to think about it much. It was all stupid, only brought us more pain than before.”

An alert invaded his train of thought. His head swiveled around the room and he caught himself reaching for a phantom blaster on his back. But there was no need to, for there was no enemy. His combat protocols protested. A squad member was in distress or in danger, thus an enemy was nearby. He set his focus back on reality, to the sight of his hand, the same one Henry had wielded back onto him. With a scrape, he clenched his metal digits against his palm.

“There won’t be anymore pain now that I’m here,” Johnny assured him.

Henry looked up at him. A smile slowly formed on his face. “You know, we’re lucky we found you when we did. I was this close to giving up the farm to the Empire,” he said, pinching his fingers together.

“That won’t be necessary now that I’m here. This farm has potential, and there’s plenty of work left to do.” Johnny opened the door to the room and gestured for Henry to follow. “I think I’m ready to learn more about irrigation.”

Henry stood from the bed, taking one last look at the dresser before standing side by side with Johnny. He patted him on the back. “Let’s go then. You don’t got much more left to learn.”

Johnny screwed in the last of the grappler droid’s head plates.

The rain continued to pour down on the farm. The constant drumming helped put Johnny’s focus on the droid before him even when his combat protocols tugged at his mind.

“I think that’s it,” Johnny said, returning all of his tools back onto his waist. He glanced over to the generator still placed at the back of the barn. Part of him yearned to use it and charge the grappler back to full power but the noise would overpower the rain. “The time’s not right yet, but I’ll power you up soon. I only have to convince Henry and Todd to bring on another battle droid.”

He looked directly into the grappler’s eyes, almost expecting a response.

“I wonder, will you even want to stay here, or stay alive? You so badly wanted to follow protocol but there’s no need for that anymore. You were disconnected, you must be free. You’ll help me with the farm, won’t you?” Johnny said, knowing that he was speaking to himself.

Satisfied with his own handiwork, he shuffled back until his chassis hit the hay bales behind him with a muffled thud. The rain outside intensified, booming louder until the noise was nearly indiscernible to that of an artillery barrage on his position. And so began his usual exhausting routine of terminating combat processes and commands.

“I don’t want to fight anymore.” Johnny leaned over to be on his side with one leg tucked up close to his metal rear. He rested one hand against his upright knee. “Do you think I could stop? I would have to reprogram myself to get rid of it all, but I don’t know a thing about how our internals work, only the outside now that I’ve worked on you.”

With one hand over his head, he played with the dim light coming from a light-bulb hung from a thin rope at the top of the barn. “I like farming. It feels satisfying. Repetitive, but fun. Let’s me think more. I don’t have to worry about thermal detonators or blaster fire or clones or any of that.”

Shifting to be on his back, he looked directly up at the light overhead and lined himself up to be beside the grappler B2’s head. “I think you’ll like it. Those blades would be useful for the plants and the animals.”

His internal clock alerted him that it was nearly midnight.

Johnny jumped up to his feet, the tools on his waist clanging against his skeletal hips. “I have to go now, but I’ll back. It won’t be long before you’re up and running again.”

A few handfuls of straw over the grappler’s body assured Johnny that his body wouldn’t be discovered. He made his way to the door and took one last look at the grappler droid tucked at the rear of the barn with the shadows acting as a blanket over him. To Johnny, he looked terribly lonely. Surely, it was just his imagination. All that time spent around the brothers taking in their manners and habits was finally rubbing off on him.

He ran out into the rain.

Chapter Text

For a month straight, the rain continued pouring pools of water down onto the lands. Rivers of mud flowed in between the plants and the outskirts of the farm in controlled streams.

The cold gnawed at the brother’s skin until it was almost purple in color and all the veins of their body were present at the surface. Johnny wasn’t spared from the storm’s wrath. One day while picking Hanava fruit from it’s respective tree, frost formed over his chassis and all his joints, locking them up and freezing him in place. He’d devolved into a brief panic-induced fight against his own body before calling out for help.

And now he was next to a heater inside the farmhouse while Henry swatted at spots of water that trickled down his arms and legs.

“Quick, quick, get me a towel,” Henry directed Todd.

Todd sprinted out of the living room into the kitchen, returning seconds later with a white cloth.

Henry swiftly patted Johnny down, his hands thumping against Johnny’s metal chassis.

His joints were free from their frozen cage a minute later and already heating up further with movement as Johnny flexed his fingers and bent one knee. “I can move a bit more now.”

Henry continued to wipe down his other leg and arm. “Didn’t realize we had bigger worries than the rain.”

“I’ll have to keep a closer eye on my temperatures through my internal thermometer.”

Once the water had stopped trickling, Henry sat back in his seat, surveying the rest of Johnny’s body for water damage.

“I think that’s it,” he said with a pat to Johnny’s back. “Are you sure nothing was damaged?”

Johnny moved his arms and legs around in circles. “I’m one hundred percent confident. Some of my joints might’ve eroded but I can always get a new limb.”

With the adrenaline subsiding from his body and the fatigue setting in, Henry clambered back onto one of several couches in the middle of the living room. Alongside the electric heater, an ancient derelict fireplace sat on one edge of the room. It’s bricks still stood strong but the interior was lined with cobwebs and soot.

Todd followed Henry’s gaze. “You know, I think we should start up that fireplace again. It hasn’t gotten this cold since...oh, who knows.” He scratched at the back of his head.

“I’m sure the Empire must have something to do with that,” Henry grumbled. “Go ahead, we still have some leftover firewood from years ago in the old storage unit.”

Todd’s red coat-tails blew a chill wind as he went off in search of said wood.

Johnny sat on one of the couches once he’d dried himself to the best of his ability, though parts of his chassis still glistened with moisture.

Heat wasn’t particularly the greatest soother for a droid like him, not usually anyways. Though the frost gifted him with perhaps the only time it would ever do so, allowing him to relax with Henry. He sunk deeper into his seat, vowing to never again take his full freedom of movement for granted.

‘I wonder…just how many people have sat in this chair?’

The idea kept him entertained for a few minutes until the fireplace was fully lit. The flame danced playfully in the shadows and in the light, putting on a show for Henry, Todd, and Johnny as they sat in a circle around it.

The crackling of the fire filled the room, overpowering the gusts of wind pounding at the walls. Johnny’s thermometer registered a comfortable rise in temperature, aiding his recovery.

“Haven’t heard that sound in awhile,” Todd said, breaking the silence.

“How many years has it been?” Henry replied, his eyes glowing with joy upon seeing Johnny sunk deep into the cushions.

“Eight, I think,” Todd said.

A silence followed. Johnny pushed himself up in his seat. ‘Now would be a good time.’

The crackling of the fire amplified further as Todd fed more pieces of wood into it.

“Henry,” Johnny said, gripping at the arms of the couch. “I was wondering...why don’t you want to me to go out looking for another battle droid?”

Henry ran a hand down his face. “It’s real easy to get lost out there. Everything looks the same. Besides, we’ve got you. You do plenty of work. I don’t want to spread our supplies so thin with another droid. I don’t think we’d be able to support another. We had to sell off all our excess generators just to buy our food.”

‘So that’s why,’ Johnny thought. ‘No supplies.’ He suppressed the urge to smack himself upside the head. ‘All those hours I spent overthinking it...what a waste of time.’

“Oh...I didn’t realize I was taking up so much power,” Johnny said.

Henry shook his head. “No, no, you’re not taking up power, Johnny. You’re using a lot, sure, but we weren’t really using it for much else. All of our laser saws and whatnot only need to be charged every now and again. We have a backup generator for all the lights.” A slight kick from his feet and his boots were off. “I’d rather have you using that power and keeping you charged. Believe me, you’re a lot bigger help than you think you are.”

Johnny’s circuits went alight with joy. He looked out the window, catching sight of the V-shaped face of the old barn where the grappler droid lied in wait.

‘You just need to hold on for a little while longer. I’ll power you on one of these days…’

The weeks went by, Johnny’s memory unit continued to fill up with new information, not just from the brother’s lessons but from the galactanet as well.

Safe and sound in the confines of his own room, Johnny was lying in bed taking a brief break from work to let his chassis dry off. A towel sat in a bucket at the foot of his bed with the end of it stuck over the side dripping with soft plops onto the wooden flooring.

His snout was pointed up towards the ceiling. The hard surface of his rear neck armor was pushed up against his thin square-pillar neck, causing a sensation like that of a blaster pushed up against the underside of his head.

In a slow and sluggish movement, he pulled at the cable extending from his abdomen to the charging port and dragged himself to the other side of the bed.

On the floor was a bloody towel rolled up into a ball.

‘I haven’t seen that much blood in a while…’

The phantom vision of a field filled with white dots and gray vehicles obscured his vision for a moment. He went to terminate the process to scan for enemies, but, for once in his time on the farm, he let it go through its course, giving in to its command.

He’d slaughtered a few animals here and there, as was expected of him.

With the spear in hand he’d pierced their necks at a specific area to make the deaths as painless as possible. As the blade had sliced through the lethal spot on the Bantha’s neck, the pleasure of the kill ran through his circuits like a chill up his metal spine.

He hated it. Loathed it, in fact.

But still his programming yearned for more, pushing him to ask Henry for another animal to kill.

He didn’t say anything about it to them and neither did they ask. Johnny understood that the killings were to be done out of necessity not want. But restricting himself from feeling the pleasure of the kill took more effort than he liked.

‘It’s just my programming, that’s all. I’ll get rid of it once I’ve payed my dues,’ Johnny thought. ‘Besides, they hate killing the animals. They feel a bond with them. If I do it, they won’t be in so much emotional pain.’

Somewhere in the distance he could hear the whir of a speeder bike. It reminded him too much of the speeders the clones would use.

He yanked the charging cable from his abdomen and jumped to his feet, a battery fell from the coffee-table beside his bed.

Johnny scanned the area, devouring every piece of information about the furniture of the living room outside. Anything to distract himself. There was a stray piece of cloth near the door stitched to a polished wooden pole. His CPU connected the dots.

‘An umbrella,’ Johnny concluded. His hand carefully wrapped around the grip while he opened the door, a gust of wind immediately blew onto him, lowering his exterior temperatures by a few degrees.

The storm continued to beat the farm into submission, filling the open air with a flurry of rain and muddying his vision. A small pool had formed in the clearing in front of the farmhouse and the old barn to the left. On the right, in the distance, he could make out the bright green and red coloring of the fruit lined up in rows like smears of color in the distance.

Johnny ran forward into the rain with the umbrella hooked onto the rails of his back. His photo-receptors targeted the speeder bike he’d left underneath one of the Hanava trees on the outskirts of the fields. The slap of his feet hitting the wet ground was drowned out by the white noise of the rain itself.

Henry was just about halfway through the line of Muja fruit, adjusting the velocity of his speeder bike.

Johnny sped past him, running towards the small river flowing on the perimeter.

Henry looked up, hearing the slosh of Johnny’s steps approaching him rather than speeding off.

He extended the umbrella out over Henry, providing him a brief respite from the battering.

“Oh that’s very kind of you, Johnny,” Henry said, swiping a hand over the hood of his raincoat.

“Take it,” Johnny replied.

“I’ve already got this one,” Henry said pulling another umbrella out from the storage compartment under the speeder bike, “You go ahead and cover yourself up, you need it more than me. I’m getting old anyhow. You’re not aging nearly as fast as me”

Johnny reluctantly pulled his hand back, lingering for a moment before continuing on back to the trees.

‘Six…’ Johnny counted. Six months since he’d been reactivated. Time passed much differently when preoccupied with how many fruits they’d collected, how much meat they’d sold, how much water they’d stored for the next harvest...

A ray of light shone down on Johnny. He lifted his eyes up to the sun.

Henry looked with him. “Eye of the storm,” he said, yanking another Muja fruit from its stalk.

“Right,” Johnny replied, piecing together what that phrase even meant.

Henry stood, his basket of fruit at his side, “Go on over and get the Banthas out for a short trip. Just while it’s still sunny. Once you see the clouds roll back in, get ‘em back inside.”

Johnny dropped his bucket of fruit into the mud. His legs moved stiffly towards the farmhouse where they kept the vibrospear. “Roger, roger.” He stopped himself, his feet skidding through the mud. “Oh – sorry, I meant to say—”

“Roger?” Henry said, almost in disbelief. “You know what, that could work for your last name. Just like Roger of the farmer’s market. Always doing things by the book he was.”

“Roger?” Johnny repeated. “Johnny Roger,” he said, feeling his full name in his own voice. “I think…I think that’d work just fine.”

He trudged through the mud and made his approach to the barn. Inside, his footsteps echoed through it’s dirt walkways until he came upon the Bantha’s pen. Most of them towered over him, save for the calfs.

One of them was sticking its head out of the pen, it’s dark eyes clearly trained on Johnny. He knelt down, and patted it on the head.

“I can see why they get so attached to you. Your physical features make you look so harmless.” Johnny wound his hand through its hair, eventually scratching under it’s chin as he’d seen Henry and Todd do so many times. The calf instinctively moved it’s head up to help Johnny out. “I’m sorry I”—he glanced around the barn—“I’m sorry for killing so many of you. I just can’t help it.” He pulled back his hand. The calf grunted and stared directly into his stoic eyes. “I...I’ll restrain myself.” It’s eyes turned soft and its ears flopped flat on it’s head. “I’d like to say that I do it only to ease Henry and Todd’s pain, but I would be lying if I said that. You understand, don’t you? You can’t help but need to eat and defecate. Well, I can’t go very long without...battle, or war, or killing, or…” He laid his head against the calf, gripping the bars of the pen until it began to bend. “I’m sorry.”

He forced himself to stand, ‘Maybe I should stop talking to the animals...’

For every month Johnny would count, the rain continued. Briefly the sun would come out, but the light wouldn’t last for much longer than an hour or two.

“Oh the later half of the year is always difficult,” Henry explained. “There’s always something going wrong along with all this rain.”

And indeed only a day later, the speeder bikes broke down thanks to the gallons of water they’d continuously ingested.

Johnny was hunched over on the ground on one knee, clearing out the water from the inner workings of the bike. The soft dirt below gradually turned into a soppy mess of mud as small pools of water formed and covered his ankles in gunk and mud.

His fingers clanged against the exterior shell of the bike as he scooped up handfuls of the rainwater out of the exhaust pipe and in-between each of its internal parts.

‘It lasted for a long time,’ Johnny thought. ‘Will the same happen to me? I could short-circuit.’

He looked back through the window of the bigger barn on the southern tip of the farmlands. Several windows were evenly spaced at the front of the building, all equally just as wide and tall. He was at the very back, where most of their equipment was stored during storms such as the one currently pounding the farm. The pitter-patter of the rain on the metal roofs of all the buildings was practically ingrained into his CPU and audio-receptors at this point. He didn’t mind it. In fact, it almost reminded him of—

Johnny terminated the thought, knowing the flood of memories it would induce.

With both hands on the cylindrical handles of the bike, he guided it back towards the entrance, wrapped a rope around both handles, and tied it to a nearby support beam.

His photo-receptors shifted over to the herd of Banthas situated at the rear of their enclosure. Their towering masses looked more like moving shadows even with the dim lights on.

The animals were much more passive and subdued than when he’d first made it on the farm. It was an odd sight. They would move around in circles at times and then lie down for the rest of the day. Periodically they would eat and drink—everything that life demanded from an organic, then go right back to sleep. He couldn’t imagine living a life like them.

It only made each of their kills more painful yet satisfying at the same time.

Another distraction was in order. Leaning against the support beams of the barn, he hit his foot against the steel walls to clear the mud from his feet.

Todd burst through the side door off to Johnny’s right.

“What’s all that ruckus?” He asked.

“I’m just cleaning my feet,” Johnny said.

Todd came up to his side and nudged him towards the door where he’d entered, “C’mon you can clean yourself in the house. Henry wants to tell you about our end-of-year celebrations we used to do.”

“Used to?”

“Yeah, back when the whole family was here,” Todd said in a solemn tone.

“Oh, I didn’t mean to—”

“I know, I know. Can’t fault you for being so curious. Our usual droids were so...stiff and lifeless. You—we’ve never had a droid like you before,” Todd said, stepping outside to the platforms they’d constructed at the sides of the crop fields. They walked side by side down the walkway, the rain beat down on them although with much less strength than other days.

“I don’t know why I’m so different. But sometimes I—” Johnny stopped himself. ‘No, it wouldn’t be a good idea to tell them.’

“Sometimes you...what?” Todd asked, turning towards him.

“Sometimes I...think it’s all a little overwhelming.”

“Oh I understand. Believe me. If it’s hard for us to deal with all these issues at once, it must be even harder for you as a droid.”

“Yes…” Johnny said.

It never felt right to lie. Not even when he thought he was doing the right thing. He reasoned it was part of his programming, meant to keep him in check. But it somehow felt worse with the brothers. As if he had wounded them in some way.

He was almost tempted to tell them about the grappler droid, cleanse his conscience. But then they might throw him out, consider him too dangerous because of his blades. Not only that, but they’d lose trust in him as well and maybe even throw him out too.

‘Too much thinking,’ Johnny thought, ‘Need to get busy.’

They entered the house, a flame already crackling within the confines of the brick fireplace.

Henry was sat on the couch nearest to the fire, it’s red-tinted leather shined with a fine gloss he’d applied only recently. In fact, everything within the house had been cleaned. Johnny hadn’t noticed until he compared images from his memory unit to the present moment.

‘When did they do this?’ Johnny wondered, ‘It wasn’t last night…’

“It’s coming up to the end of the year, Johnny. Ya’ know what that means?” Henry said, his eyes scrunched with a big smile on his face.

‘He’s more joyous than other days,’ Johnny evaluated. “No, but I assume it’s another celebration?”

“Correct.” He stood from his seat, drawing Johnny’s attention from his face down to the ball of green cloth in his hands. One of his meaty hands thumped down onto his shoulder. “You’re getting more knowledgeable by the hour! That’s good, you’ll need that curiosity.” The expression on his face slipped for just a moment, his eyes glossed over with a sorrowful look.

Johnny refreshed his photo-receptors.

‘My receptors must be damaged from the water.’

Behind him, Todd rummaged through a chest pushed up against one side of the front entrance.

“What’s the occasion?” Johnny said.

“New years, we used to give lots of gifts among our family here. I figured it should end where it started.”

A wave of confusion passed over Johnny’s logic circuits. “I don’t understand.”

Henry shoved his coat into Johnny’s hands. His hands pressed hard against Johnny’s metal fingers as he clasped them tightly. “This is an old hand-me-down passed down for hundreds of years within our family. I want you to be the last recipient,” he said, his expression hardening. “It’s very important that you maintain it for as long as you can. It would please me more than any of the work you’ve done here on the farm. Carry it with you for the rest of your life, Johnny.”

Johnny’s vocalizer emitted white static as he failed to find the words to question him. His metal fingers gently pried open the coat. A shiny coat of gray metal stared back at him.

It was an ancient blaster pistol, retrofitted with several upgrades and modifications which were visible by the poor welding job on the barrel and muzzle. He instinctively grabbed it by the handle, testing the weight of it in his hand. His CPU was already adjusting for the potential recoil of the weapon.

“I can’t take this,” Johnny said, moving to return the blaster.

Henry pushed it back. “You’re going to need it.”

“Why?” He turned to Todd who stared back at him with a solemn expression. “What’s going on?”

Henry pursed his lips and glanced over to Todd.

“It’s nothing serious. We saw a herd of Ulder bears stalking the farm. No doubt the storm has been hard on them. They’re going to look for food here, we need you to be prepared.”

Johnny’s circuits buzzed with delight as he became accustomed to the blaster.

He nearly moved to slam the blaster to the floor but he stopped himself and held it by the barrel. “…I will do as you say.”

Henry’s face glowed, his smile returned. “Listen, we’re doing this for good reason. We trust you to wield that blaster well. You know, you’re most likely a better shot than either of us.”

“I can count how many times I’ve fired a blaster on one hand,” Todd said, taking a seat on the couch farthest from the fire. “That blaster is in good hands, I’m sure of it.”

‘But I don’t want to be a marksman,’ Johnny thought, ‘I just want to be a farmer.”

“If you say so,” Johnny said.

Henry swung his arms out as he plopped back down into his seat. “You should sleep early. You’ve done enough for today, we’ll go to bed soon.”

Servomotors hissed and whined in frustration as Johnny sped towards his room. He went through his usual routine, cleaning his chassis of dirt and grime, wiping the surface of every piece of furniture in the room. Then came the blaster sitting at the foot of his bed. He gripped it in his hand once more and slid his thumb over the glossy wooden handle.

‘I can’t escape it. I just can’t escape it,’ Johnny thought, his internal temperatures rapidly rising. His grip on the pistol tightened until a scratch appeared on the handle. ‘I don’t want to be a soldier anymore. Just let me be free!’

The blaster landed with a soft thud against his bed. He slapped a cable into his charging port and forced himself into sleep mode.

Chapter Text

One chilly morning, on a day where the clouds did not block the light from the sun for the first time in weeks, the sound of a whirring star ship engine echoed through the forest.

Henry sighed and leaned over the kitchen sink, his eyes closing and a pressure crushing him from within. He didn’t want to believe it was them.

At times, travelers would make landfall around the farm either to take pictures in front of the destroyed AATs and dead bodies out on the battlefields or to unload their trash into the wild. Perhaps it was one of those.

But he knew that wasn’t the case. The sound of the engine brought up untouched memories. He’d first heard it during the initial battles nearby. It was a distinctive high-pitched whine, a war-cry, a harbinger of destruction and death—everything the Imperials had brought to the planet when they were still the Republic.

He took a deep breath and sprinted out, throwing open the doors and leaving a mess of unwashed dishes that would never be cleaned behind him.

“Todd! Todd,” he called out.

“What! What!” Todd responded, jumping up from his spot on the porch, his eyes wide and red.

“They’re here! Get the blasters! And why were you sleeping?” Henry yelled.

“It was on accident!” Todd replied, sprinting into the house.

“You were supposed to be keeping an eye on Johnny!” Henry looked around the fields with wild eyes. “Johnny! Johnny!”

The side door of the larger barn was left ajar. He’d made it halfway only to slip in the mud still fresh from the nights of non-stop rain. Mud stuck to his clothes like glue and turned them a dark shade of brown. By the time he’d made it back onto his feet, the sound of clacking armor echoed from behind him.

It was almost too painful to turn around but he did so anyways. A squadron of Imperial soldiers dressed in their standard black and gray trench uniforms marched their way from the rear of the old barn to the farmhouse.

“Johnny!” he whisper-shouted.

A series of steps thumped against the dirt from somewhere within the barn. Henry finally made it to the door just as Johnny rounded the corner.

“Yes?” Johnny said, reeling back from being in such close proximity to Henry.

“Do you have your blaster with you?” Henry said. His eyes were wide with fear, the rest of his face sagged, the years of his life visible in every wrinkle.

Johnny surmised something was wrong. “Yes, what’s going on? Are the bears here?”

He reluctantly pulled the blaster from his holster.

Henry sighed, running a hand through his hair. “It’s not bears, Johnny. Worse than that. It’s the Empire. Hide in here,” he swiped the mud off of his jacket and pants. “If you hear shooting, come find us in the house.”

Henry moved to leave but Johnny grabbed him by his arm, “I will go with you.”

“No, no, you can’t. I might be able to persuade ‘em to leave us alone with the credits we’ve got. If they see you, there’s no doubt they’ll start shooting.”

Johnny’s CPU began to overheat. On one hand, he wanted to fight and protect his new family. On the other, he wished to stay as long as possible on the farm and abandon all thought of war.

“I will do as you say,” Johnny said after a short silence.

“Good, good. Just don’t worry about us. We’ll keep them inside the farmhouse,” Henry said hurriedly. He ran out the door, hanging on to the walls of the barn this time around as he skidded through the mud.

Johnny leaned against the metal walls of the barn with a soft clang. His fingers scraped three wide scratches into the wooden grip of his blaster pistol in his hand.

‘Why can’t they leave me alone? Why can’t all of them just go away?’ White armor took up his vision, activating his combat protocols. This time, he let the process go through. ‘It doesn’t matter now, I can’t get rid of this part of myself. The enemy is here and they’ll never leave us be. They’ll always come to ruin things, won’t they?’

He reminisced on the brief year he’d spent with Henry and Todd. Their hospitality, so foreign to him but greatly appreciated. Their lessons, his mind devouring every bit of information. The animals, the plants, the woods, the grappler droid—

And now the Empire was here.

A pressure rose through his entire abdomen and a fire burning as hot as the star glowing in the sky along with it.

‘It doesn’t matter what happens to me, I must protect them,’ Johnny brought the blaster pistol up, gripping it tighter and with both hands.

Sloshing through the field of mud that sucked at his feet and slowed him down, one singular objective had his complete and total focus: eliminate all Imperial forces. They were no different from the clones, those humans dressed in black and white.

Fluid movements turned to a sterile military march as he stomped his way through the field of mud.

Upon reaching the first steps of the porch, the first blaster shots rang out from inside.

He slammed the front door open, embedding the doorknob into the walls of the house.

The couches of the living area were strewn about, with the larger of the three tipped onto its side. The others were left badly burned with smoke still rising from the burnt leather.

Footsteps thumped against the creaky wooden flooring somewhere to his left and right. They disappeared to the outside where the slosh of mud continued to alert him of the enemy’s position.

Johnny swept the room with his pistol, clearing every corner as he raced into the kitchen. He rounded the marble counter, only stopping once his foot had bumped against something soft, prompting him to turn his blaster towards the ground.

Henry was pushed up against the counter, his face contorted in agony as he clutched his thigh. He put a hand up. “It’s me Johnny.”

“You’re injured,” Johnny assessed, kneeling to be on his level.

Todd shuffled from his position on the floor close-by, his eyes were shut tight with his arms pressing onto his stomach.

“I don’t got a mortal injury, don’t worry about me, but Todd,” Henry looked over to him. “He’s got it worse. Took a shot to the stomach. He’s lucky I gave him that bit of armor plating.”

Johnny shuffled closer to Todd, briefly pulling hands away from his stomach. A black burn mark was etched in a small circle in the center with all the skin around it turned a pinkish red. Todd grunted and violently pushed his hands back onto his injury.

A fierce heat rattled through his internals at the sight.

“Are there any medical supplies around here?” Johnny asked, peeking around the corner down the hall towards the old storage unit.

“I’ll get them. You go and get rid of those Imperials,” Henry said, struggling to get on his feet.

Johnny wrapped an arm around his waist and helped him up, being careful not to dig his fingers too deep into his fragile skin.

“Thanks,” Henry muttered. “Go give us some time to recover, I can hold things down from here.”

Johnny wasted no time. He brought his blaster back up and marched down the hall.

“Stay alive, Johnny,” Henry called out to him.

He turned around, his sensors still scanning for hostiles in front of him, “I will.”

Henry’s steps thumped against the floor as he limped towards his room on the other end of the building.

Old protocols barged through the mental restrictions he’d put up around them, all caution on using them went with the wind. A tingle of delight rushed through his circuits, reminding him of old battles and the rewards his own programming would give him for eliminating the enemy. Like it or not, this was what he’d been built for, and if he were going to fight, he would at least fight with all his life knowing the very humans who’d saved him were in danger.

With renewed vigor, he rushed down the hall, his sensors failing to pick up any activity on the other end of the house. Inside the old storage unit at one far corner of the building sat an old and withered window with its white paint peeling at the edges and the wood turning black with rot. He glanced outside. In the immediate vicinity of the farmhouse, the Imperial soldiers dressed entirely in black armor were regrouping around the rear of the old barn. Some of them looked to be in pain, clutching at different areas of their body with scrunched faces.

Johnny instinctively turned on his comm-device to report his findings but there was nobody listening. He shook his head, ‘What am I doing? Focus,’ he thought. ‘I shouldn’t face them head-on like my combat protocols are telling me to do. I must stay alive, as Henry commanded.’

He pushed at the window, it creaked and bent under his will but was obviously not meant to be opened.

‘That would make too much noise.’

He paced the living room and the two bathrooms beside it. There was no rear exit, at one point there had been but it was blocked off after the storm had kicked in the door with a great gust of wind.

He froze in place, recalling the rain flooding the bathrooms one day when Todd had left the window open by accident.

Entering one, his photo-receptors drew a cursory glance at the shower and toilet, a brief moment of curiosity distracted him before his combat protocols snapped him back into focus. A withered window was above the shower and would make for an ideal flanking maneuver on the enemy. His skeletal body slipped right through the thin opening, his hands worsening the already cracked and foggy state of the window.

The rear of the farmhouse was filled with a sea of grass stalks nearly the height of a bantha.

‘Perfect.’

Johnny crouched at the corner of the building and peeked around the corner. The Imperials had begun to advance, pushing inch by inch back towards the farmhouse. A squad of four were out in the open while the rest of the soldiers covered them from behind the barn.

He swiftly moved into position, using the corner of the intersecting walls beside him to stabilize his blaster. Three quick successions of bolts tore through the ranks of the Imperials. Two of them immediately fell to the ground, writhing in agony. Their armor plating only served to lengthen the pain of their wounds rather than save them as both fell silent within a few seconds.

Those behind the barn only caught the fleeting sight of Johnny’s tan skeletal body retreating back into cover.

Both injured soldiers took potshots towards his position while another two advanced. They fired their weapons blindly around the corner but found no target nor any indication where he’d gone in the lengthy patch of tall grass stalks. A small fire started somewhere in the middle of all the greenery, pushing up a small cloud of growing smoke into the air.

The bathroom window burst open and a torrent of blaster fire came with it, smothering the soldiers in a barrage of plasma. Their bodies slumped to the floor as the skin of their faces melted off in a river of red and tan liquid.

Johnny inspected the bodies with a cold and calculative gaze, detecting the sudden drop in temperature of both the soldiers. He closed the window with such force that more web-shaped cracks formed in the middle of the glass.

Had there been enough time, he would’ve extended their deaths for far longer.

His footsteps thumped through the living room as he spotted the rest of the organics nearing the front door. He dragged one of the overturned couches to the entrance, pushed it up against the door, and slammed the grip of his pistol into the small window near the top of the weathered door, firing a few potshots towards the Imperials positions. They returned fire and rushed back into cover behind the old barn, a few slipped and sloshed through the mud. Their black armor was almost entirely stained with splotches of the thick ooze, appearing like brown polka dots on their plating.

Johnny crouched down as the Imperials returned fire. The red bolts briefly illuminated his face. Somewhere back towards the bathrooms, another window was blown out. His audio-receptors were sharpened with the activation of his combat protocols, letting him hear every single shard of glass scattering across the floor.

Everything around him was falling apart at the seams, yet none of it registered as anything important. There were only two data-points that he honed in on.

Through the blaster-fire and the shattered windows, Johnny stormed down the hall, returning to the brothers. Henry was crouched over Todd, applying a cream to his stomach.

He glanced over to Johnny. “He’s stable, but we’ll need to get him to a hospital soon.”

“Are there any around here?” Johnny replied, occasionally checking behind them.

Henry sighed and shook his head, “No, they all left a few years back once the war was over. We’ll have to go off-planet.”

“I’ll eliminate these Imperials as fast I can,” Johnny assured him. He moved forward.

Henry didn’t bother to look back up.

Johnny sprinted back towards the bathroom, his servomotors pushed to their max, and even then his speed was still far too slow. Todd was dying and the enemy was still alive. A greater pace was needed. As he slammed the window back open, a storm of smoke bellowed into the bathroom, completely obscuring his vision.

White outlines formed around him, creating a clear image out of the storm of smoke. He slid through the mud out towards the larger barn, never faltering in his stride. The Imperials would never expect him to flank them from the greater barn and it would give him full control over the farmhouse with the rear entrance blocked by fire. His processor usage jumped to one hundred percent as he slunk into the shadows, occasionally glancing behind him to watch for the invaders.

Battle demanded everything from him and so he would give it all. His life, his past, his memories, his artificial emotions—all of it, if only it meant that Todd would get to live at the end of the day.

‘Stay strong, Todd. You are tired and aged but don’t sleep just yet. We’ll stand together over the bodies of our enemies, enjoying another day alive in this wonderful galaxy. Tomorrow, you’ll be sleeping on the porch chair while I work all day long.’

He rushed past the frightened animals inside the barn and peered out the front door. The fields were directly ahead, no longer as colorful as the beginning of the year. Just the sight of them brought back a thousand memories from the past several months. None of the Imperials would be leaving the farm alive.

His long snout poked out from the side entrance of the barn, spotting several figures dressed in black soon arriving at the front entrance.

Johnny burst out and began firing on the squad of four. One clutched his side and went down while the others dove for cover behind the porch railings.

Another barrage of bolts rained down on the Imperials from within the farmhouse, killing one that had decided to take cover in front of a window. He screamed in agony, his wails echoed through the barren lands of the farm. The sound was the key to a side of his mind he’d stowed away and never wished to return to. But it was there again. Kicking both feet into he mud, he leapt out from inside the barn, nearly flying over the fields of mud with his coattails flailing in the wind behind him and his hat struggling to grip onto his oval head. Each shot fed his processor energy, enticing him forward onto the Imperials position on the porch with no fear left in his mind. He pushed forward until he hit the corner of the porch where he could see directly behind the railings. The terrified visage of a squishy human came into view and soon burnt to death under the pelting of plasma he received in such a short amount of time. The last of the four kicked in the door of the farmhouse and rushed in.

Echoes of crashes and punches made their way through the broken windows with a few stray shots being fired here and there. Just as he took the first step to run inside, more blaster-fire assaulted him. Two imperials were still situated at the old barn.

There was no time for hesitation, the brittle wooden frames of the porch railing bent under his hand as he pushed off of them and sprinted inside. The fire on the rear of the farmhouse continued to grow and had begun to lick at the roof and climb through the open bathroom window. Using the walls to bounce off of, he expertly moved through the interior, the layout fully ingrained into his memory unit.

He came to the foot of the kitchen where an Imperial soldier lay dead on the ground with a knife in his neck. Henry was close-by lying on the ground, clutching at his side.

“Are you alright?” Johnny said, falling to the floor beside him.

Henry gave him a pained look, his mouth contorting and eyes clenching shut. “To be honest with you, Johnny, no,” he said with a pained laugh. “Listen, there’s an old freighter up in the north, it’s a hand-me-down.” Henry stuffed a hand in his pocket and procured a thick piece of folded up paper. It was brown, wrinkled, and torn at the edges. “Find your way to it using this map, and get out of here.”

“I can’t do that,” Johnny said, taking the map into his hand and placing it on the floor. “You gave me life again, I won’t leave you at the end.”

Henry smiled, “Todd’s dead Johnny, and I’m going to join him soon. I’m sorry, I can’t do anything to stop it now.”

“There must be something,” Johnny’s CPU searched through the whole galactanet, reading through thousands of medical documents at a time, desperately looking for a solution.

“It’s alright,” Henry grabbed Johnny’s hands. “I couldn’t have asked for a better droid to serve this farm. This place died along with the war. Take all the credits in my room, and make a run for it. The Empire’s gonna keep comin’. They know that we’re here. The galaxy is real hostile towards droids like yourself nowadays, keep that blaster close to you at all times.”

Johnny looked out the window, hearing the distant footsteps of the last soldiers moving about the edge of the farm. “I can get rid of the rest, stop this fire, and heal you in a few—”

“No, no, Johnny,” Henry said patting his hands. “It’s done.”

He couldn’t help but notice how weak his voice had become in such a short span of time.

“If you want to serve me as a droid, then leave. You will be the last farmer to have taken part in this little project of ours. I’m proud of you, Johnny. You’re like the son I never had. Now go.”

Johnny clutched Henry’s hands tighter with controlled strength. “I will miss you two,” he said, his voice crackling with white static.

“I know,” Henry whispered. He laid his head down and closed his eyes with a smile still etched on his face.

He spared a few more seconds holding his hands before he set them at either side of his body.

‘One day, I will meet you both again, just as I have with the grappler, my only friend left in this life.’

With little care of the bolts sizzling his way, he carried Todd and Henry’s bodies out of the burning farmhouse and into the fields. The moment their limbs splashed onto the ground, an unbearable heat grew within him and only the deaths of all organics in the area would quell it.

Firing a few shots towards the old barn, he sprinted towards the last of the Imperials, his feet slashing through the mud painting his chassis and clothes in an assortment of brown and black. No resentment towards his own programming remained in his mind, only a piercing anger directing every little movement of his body.

Within a matter of seconds, he was behind the old barn, staring down the backs of his enemies. Both were too busy patching themselves up with bacta and bandages to hear Johnny’s blaster firing two separate shots. Their bodies slumped to the ground.

He burst through the doors of the old barn, bashed through the stacks of hay bales at the rear, and swiped the straw off the grappler droid quick enough to nearly start another fire.

He lugged the generator that had once powered him on to the grappler’s position and stuck the cable into his port. “I couldn’t save them, but I can save you.”

The crackling of the fire nearby drew his attention. An urge to put it out formed in his mind but he set it aside and listened instead to his combat protocols. ‘I need to clear the area first.’

There was an electric pulse emanating from somewhere outside the boundary of the farm land. The pulse of a generator, most likely that of a star ship.

Johnny drew his pistol once more and ran out into the forest. He passed the trees near the trail where he’d carried the grappler droid back to the farm. It seemed so long ago, at the beginning of his new life. Perhaps the grappler droid would be there at the end again.

A splotch of gray paint and the glint of metal caught his attention.

He unconsciously steadied himself with one arm on a nearby tree.

There in the edge of the plains sat an Imperial shuttle, it’s dual set of wings along with the static center foil were bunched up above the main body of the ship.

He lightened his steps upon reaching a few feet from the outside of the bay doors. With a few metal clangs, he was inside with nothing but the vacant seats staring back at him.

The sound of a muffled voice came from deeper inside. His sensors picked up one last organic.

The doors of the cockpit hissed open, a pilot dressed in a boring gray uniform peeked out.

Johnny didn’t hesitate to pull the trigger, shooting the organic once to the head.

His body sagged, the joints of his legs and arms audibly groaning.

He wandered outside, catching sight of a plume of smoke rising ever higher into the sky.

His hand tightened with leftover rage and energy until the grip of his blaster creaked under the force. ‘Why couldn’t they just leave me alone?’

Chapter Text

Johnny picked at the loose strings of his coat, twirling them around his wide metal fingers.

Beside him, the grappler droid was still lying on the ground, his battery percentage moving up a single percentage point every few minutes.

The chirps of the insects and the soft pitter-patter on the roof of the barn had returned. For Johnny, it would most likely be the last time he’d hear the same medley of noises. His audio-receptors recorded every minute they could.

A quiet whine emanated from his internal hardware.

The hours since he’d cleared out the Imperials had been busy to say the least. He’d let all of the animals go, burnt down the rest of the farm, gathered and stored all the plant seeds he could recover, and buried the brothers in their family graveyard.

The map he’d been given marked the location of the cemetery about a mile north of the farm, hidden near an ancient mine whose entrance had been blown and filled with dirt. The area had been damp and dark, covered in moss, and with gravestones that were somehow untouched by the nature around it. His photo-receptors had given him the sight to do the job. Their gravestones had already been planted beforehand, most likely by the brothers themselves.

Johnny shifted, his entire body suddenly feeling too rigid and sharp.

He’d recorded the last words Henry had spoken to him. The battering of the rain and chirping of insects was about as distant as the mountains themselves. He could only hear his voice.

“They wanted to be remembered,” Johnny said to the grappler droid’s body. He lazily turned his head towards him. “I’m the last of their family to have worked on the farm.” He jerked a bit upright as he pulled another thread of string from his coat. “I’ll make sure they aren’t forgotten, starting by telling you, but I’ll wait until you’re awake.”

The grappler droid shifted into a sitting position.

Johnny drew his blaster in reaction to the sudden movement, but he stopped himself mid-way through pulling it out of his holster.

“I am curious to hear the story,” the grappler droid said, his deep voice shaking the straws underneath and the walls to their sides.

“How long have you been awake?” Johnny said, sitting upright. He leaned forward, tapping his foot against the hay bales.

The grappler shifted in place. “Approximately fifteen minutes.”

“Oh,” Johnny rose to his feet. He extended a hand out to help the grappler droid up. “We should get going, I’ve got a lot to show you.”

The grappler droid shoved his hand away, displaying the blades on his own hands. “I cannot take your offer, I would cut you to pieces.”

Johnny slapped himself on the snout. “I forget.”

The grappler stood and shook the straw from his blades. Johnny waited another moment as a question arose in his mind. “Do you remember anything from before you powered down?”

The grappler droid stood stiff as a statue. “Affirmative…you were there when I powered down. But from what you have said, much has happened since then.”

“Correct.” Johnny waved him to the doors of the barn. “I’ll explain as I show you around.”

He skidded to a halt, his feet sliding through the mud. The grappler droid tilted down and stared directly into Johnny’s photo-receptors.

“By the way, I apologize for getting you killed. It wasn’t my intention,” Johnny said.

“It was our programming, nothing more,” the grappler replied, the fog of objectives and protocols to follow now gone from his mind. “You powered me back on, I will serve you in return. I will erase the memory from my internal storage unit.”

Johnny shook his head. “No need to do that, let’s just move on.”

“Affirmative.”

By the time Johnny had finished the tale of all that had happened since the grappler’s shutdown, the sun had begun to rise over the horizon.

Johnny was sitting on one of the benches in the Sol family graveyard. He kicked at the weeds that infested the place, tainting everything with their green hands. He sliced through them with the sharp ends of his fingers.

The B2 glanced over at him from the other end of the bench, his wide form took up most of the space. He slashed through most of the weeds with ease until almost none were left.

“You didn’t have to do that,” Johnny said, looking at him as he sat back down. “They’ll just grow back.”

“You said they are deserving of respect. The definition of respect is unclear to me, multiple parameters can be met, but one I know for certain, and that is a clean exterior,” the grappler replied.

Johnny fell silent, he leaned back to rest his head on the stone wall behind them. The mine entrance was dark green, the stone riddled with cobweb cracks filled with roots and other green veins.

At first he thought to clean up the place, but after burying the brothers and taking a moment to collect himself, he’d decided it would be fitting for the family to be buried alongside the plants. It was only right that they returned to the ground they once cultivated.

“You did not tell me much about them...how were they?” the grappler droid said, shifting his wide abdomen to face Johnny.

A breeze blew in from the entrance to the hidden graveyard, shifting all the leaves in one great wave. They rustled in tune with each other in a natural symphony.

“I’ll tell you more later,” Johnny pushed himself up to his feet. “We have to get going, the Empire will be here soon.”

They stood at the edge of the lands that once belonged to the Sol family. The farmhouse had turned almost completely black with smoke with soot staining the grass around it. A few clouds still hung over the corpse like a vulture eyeing a carcass.

In the middle of the structure, the roof had collapsed, leaving the triangle-shaped roof jutting out of the wreckage at the farthest ends of the building. Both the old and the new barn were left in a similar state. Somehow, the oldest of the two barns still stood with the wood only having turned completely black, appearing like a rift in time and space. It was enough to nearly cause damage to both their photo-receptors.

The fields were left a mess of dirt and mud to cover up the fact that there had ever been fields of plants and fruits in the first place.

Johnny went through his memory unit, and came upon his first encounter with the brothers. “Hello, my name’s Todd and this here’s Henry…”

‘Their words, their voices. So unique to the rest of the organics I’ve encountered.’

He scoured up every memory of their conversations and bundled them into one data set.

‘I will be their voice. Yes...they will live through me.’

His vocalizer rebooted adjusting his accent to match the brothers. He stood and looked to the cabin one last time.

‘We will survive, all of this will be for you two.’

He looked up to the grappler droid. “Say, now that I’ve been thinkin’ about it, you don’t have a name do you?”

“My unit number is B-Z3,” the grappler droid replied, standing as still as ever.

“That’s no name, just a unit number. Let me give you one.”

The B2 didn’t move so much as an inch. “If that is what you wish.”

Johnny scoured up every name the brothers had ever uttered until he came upon one that pleased him.

With a poor imitation of a snap of his fingers, Johnny stuck his snout out towards B-Z3. “How about Thomas?”

The grappler droid gave no physical reaction. “This will be a suitable replacement for my unit number. Re-configuring internal name database…”

Johnny let him finish. In the meantime, he took as many pictures as he could of the area before it was all gone. One day, Antamont would swallow the whole of the farm’s corpse, just as it would with the defunct B1s and clones littering the fields of the planet.

‘I will miss them all, but they deserve the rest after so much suffering. All that time for my fellow B1s spent in the endless cycle of battle, death, and rebirth while the clones soldiered on watching their comrades fall in battle, it would be too much for most of them even if they had survived. I’m glad I don’t have any of my old memories.’

A content hum emanated from deep within his internals.

The grappler droid shifted in place. “Database has been re-configured. My name is now Thomas.”

“Let’s get goin’ Thomas,” Johnny said, patting him on the side. “My name’s Johnny, by the way.”

“It is nice to meet you, Johnny. Your wish is my command,” Thomas replied.

As they walked through the forest back towards the rolling plains of the battlefield where their fellow battle droids had gone to die, they came upon a particular road that made Johnny completely stop in his tracks.

It was a wide dirt path, long since abandoned by the local farmers and the Empire. A hole that extended a few feet deep interrupted it. A river ran alongside it, leading down further to a cliff to the east.

“This place is familiar,” Thomas commented, coming to his side.

Johnny’s shoulders sagged. “It’s where I stepped on a mine and disconnected from the mothership.”

“Oh.” Thomas said, staring at Johnny. “This is where it all happened?”

“It is,” Johnny turned to him. “I forgive you, by the way. You were just doin’ what was ordered of you.”

Thomas said nothing, instead opting to turn off towards the mountains, their hulking forms hovering over them, watching.

“I wonder,” Johnny said in a near whisper. “Do you see the beauty of those stone giants? Do you feel that they’re alive, that they’re watching?”

It was a long while before he spoke again. “I admire their size and their power. That is all.” His chassis groaned as he turned to him. “I believe we will have a pleasant life if these are the views we are allowed to see.”

Though his stoic face had no way of showing it, Johnny was overjoyed. Thomas saw much the same when it came to nature, to the beauty and allure of it all.

“Agreed,” Johnny mumbled, continuing onward. He wanted to look back, catch a glimpse of the farm far behind them but he resisted it as best he could. There was nothing left for him there.

Taking one last photo of the path where everything had started, Johnny marched to the ship, comforted at the fact that another battle droid was striding at his side.

A few minutes later, they arrived at the location.

Johnny gazed upon the freighter. It’s green-silver paint was heavily scratched up from the years of use. The main body was outlined with sharp edges that almost formed a trapezoidal shape, with the cockpit being the highest point in the entire ship. The wings featured antenna-like spikes coming off from them, ending in a flat edge at the end.

Thomas came up to his side. “I have never flown a ship before. I do not contain the modules necessary for such a job.”

“Me neither,” Johnny replied. He laid a hand on his hat, bringing it down to his waist. ‘Henry said something about always taking your hat off indoors. I’ll respect that rule.’

He brought out the key chain Henry had give him. At one end was the key to the ship, at the other was a small pad with a series of buttons displayed in rows. He clicked at one. The cargo bay at the rear of the freighter opened with a burst of steam. The white mist flowed to the side and flew away with a gust of wind.

Johnny pressed onward with Thomas close behind him.

The bay was barren, with only bags and empty crates taking up space. Johnny trailed his hands across them, picking up the bits of dust and pieces of Muja fruit that still clung onto their sides.

‘For the harvest…’

The day he’d first powered on felt so long ago. He brought up the dust that had gathered on the tips of his fingers and watched it slowly crumble away to nothing.

‘That’s the last of what remains of you. But you aren’t gone just yet. You’re still here, in my head, in my chassis, in my every move. Come along with me, Henry, Todd. We still have much to do.’

At the end of the cargo, a short set of stairs led into what appeared to be a living quarters with two bunk bends squeezed in at either side. A small kitchen with only two stoves and a fridge was constructed in the corner. A table sat nearby. At the other end was a small holotable squished right up against the wall and bunk beds.

“This looks cozy,” Johnny said.

Thomas stayed silent, still staring at Johnny.

“Don’t think I’ve ever seen the inside of a civilian ship before,” Johnny said.

“It is full of unnecessary items,” Thomas replied, glancing around the room.

Johnny cocked his head from side to side. “We can make good use of it. But let’s figure that out another day.”

Another set of stairs led up to the cockpit. Johnny clambered up and plopped down onto the pilot’s seat with Thomas close behind. The transparisteel of the cockpit extended to either side of him, letting him see much farther than the average star ship. A red light blinked on the wall of instruments before him.

‘I don’t know how to fly a ship, but Henry and Todd had faith in me to learn as fast and as best I could.’

A quick trip to the galactanet solved the issue of his piloting knowledge and within a few searches he’d already found and read through a few flight manuals along with more documents on the ship they were currently in. Clanging metal abruptly brought him back to reality. Thomas had crammed himself into the co-pilot’s seat, his blades tucked close to his body.

“I do not believe I will be of much use in here,” Thomas said.

“That’s alright,” Johnny replied, pressing the button to close the bay doors. “You don’t need to sit, just cover the rear.’

“Affirmative,” Thomas replied, standing back up, his wide body struggled to fit back through the door.

Johnny started up the engines and leaned back in his seat, thumbing the wheel before him.

“Is there an issue?” Thomas questioned, looking down at him.

“No, this is an older ship. Need to let the engine warm up,” Johnny replied, still looking forward. Out in the distance he could see the mountains staring down at him past the tops of the trees. It’s blank white eyes stared back at him, watching his final moments on Antamont.

He leaned forward, burying his head into his hands. “I don’t even know where to go…”

Thomas fidgeted behind him. “Antamont is our current location. Is this correct?”

Johnny lifted his head and clasped his hands together. “That’s right.”

“There is a Confederate aligned...formerly Confederate-aligned planet nearby named Daphermil with a depot for droids in the city of Ghorma. My internal database has not been updated in four years but it is the only choice we have.” Thomas replied.

Johnny sat back up. “Right, we’ll head there.”

He clicked at the numbers on a terminal in the center of the ship’s instruments. Once the job was done, he sat back and listened to the droning hum of the ship’s computer along with the whir of the engine somewhere below.

“I believe this would be a good time for you to inform me of the organics that salvaged you,” Thomas said, breaking the silence.

Johnny mimicked a sigh which sounded more like a burst of static-riddled breath. “There’s too much to tell right now, but I can tell you this, they were the kindest people I’d ever met in my life. They brought me back to life and much more than that.”

“I am grateful for their kindness, and for yours,” Thomas said as a matter of fact.

Johnny twirled the strings of his coat around one finger. “I…bringin’ you back wasn’t so much an act of kindness, it was more so out of guilt. I felt I was responsible for your death.”

The silence lingered for a near uncomfortable amount of time. Johnny avoided his piercing gaze. If there was any time that Thomas was going to turn on him, it would be now when he realized that what he’d said was entirely true.

“You did not kill me. It was my programming forcing me to fulfill a directive. You understand this, do you not?”

Johnny turned, staring into the single black visor on his face that was his eyes. “I do, but it’s not that simple. After you spend so long alive with time to truly think, the smaller details tend to haunt you. I know that your directive is what forced you into chasing me, but if I hadn’t ran at all, you wouldn’t have fallen off of that cliff—“

“And if you had not ran away we would not be alive. We would be dead with the others on the battlefield,” Thomas replied, his voice rattling the metal plates of the bulwarks around him.

Johnny sat stunned in his chair. For once, the voice in his head that perpetually tormented him was quelled. And it was all thanks to Thomas, both his voice and his reasoning.

“You’re right,” Johnny said, gleeful that he had another battle droid to converse with. Had he gone alone, he would’ve died from his own thought threads. “I’m glad I went back for you, Thomas. You are the voice of reason I’ve been searching for all this time.”

Thomas’ internals hummed in delight. “I am satisfied that I have fulfilled a purpose.”

Another thought thread spawned on the heels of his previous statement. “Say, Thomas, for how long were you powered on? I remember seeing you still had a bit of power before today.”

Thomas grabbed the sides of the cockpit entrance, and looked out the window. “I am uncertain but I remember hearing your voice sometime before today. You said you would repair me, and power me on. You did exactly that…I know that no other droid would’ve done the same. For that, I will not leave your side as you did not leave me.”

“I was only trying to pass on the kindness the brothers had shown me,” Johnny said with a nod. He stuck out his hand towards him. “You have my word that I won’t let you die as long as you’re with me.”

Thomas stared at it. “I will damage you.”

Johnny reached out to his hand, carefully avoiding the blades, and slowly shook it. “Nothing to be afraid about. This just means we have a deal. I will honor my word as long as live.”

They broke off contact, Thomas was mindful of his blades as he let his hand fall back to his side. “I understand. I will do the same.”

Johnny finally returned his attention to the window, ready to leave the planet behind once and for all.

He pulled up on the wheel, listening intently to the creaks and groans the ship made. It was a sort of language to him and one day he would decipher it just as he’d done with the plants he’d nurtured and cared for. The mountains in their full splendor stared at them head-on. As he descended higher and higher into the air, the forest and the hills and the rivers grew to be lines and dots on the ground. A gust of wind smacked the window, forming frost on the outer edges of it as if Antamont was saying one final goodbye with it’s hand pressed up against the glass.

‘See you around, Antamont.’

The cockpit turned skywards to the void of space, cold and apathetic to his journey. His free hand moved to pull the lever to make the jump to hyperspace, but a jolt shook the ship with enough ferocity to nearly push him out of his seat.

“What was that?” Thomas said, his hands nearly bending the entrance as he clung on for dear life.

“Dunno,” Johnny replied.

He pulled the wheel around in a desperate search for what had hit him.

It didn’t take him long to find the culprit. A hulking mass of gray metal barreled towards them. It was an Imperial Bayonet-class light cruiser, it’s triangular shape and form like so many other Imperial ships though the command-bridge appeared to have more armor than other war ships of it’s type.

The speaker above him crackled to life. “State your name and occupation immediately,” a posh voice said.

“Uh, name’s Johnny Roger, occupation is farmer,” Johnny replied.

The silence afterwards was long. Johnny whipped around to see if he’d accidentally turned off the radio.

“You’re not in our database. We will have to escort you to register as an Imperial citizen, please do not move your ship,” the voice responded.

‘I don’t take orders anymore,’ Johnny wanted to say and he nearly did had he not glanced at the ship’s instruments. The Imperial cruiser was honing on them quicker than he’d anticipated. In a desperate attempt to get away, he set the throttle to near full speed and listened to a whine emanate from somewhere below.

“Not enough power to get out of this strange lock,” Johnny said. He went through the manual in his head again.

“I am not knowledgeable in space combat, I cannot help,” Thomas said.

“I know, I know. Just hold on.”

“Mister Roger, please do not attempt to jump to hyperspace. We will be bringing you aboard shortly,” the voice said.

“Ah.” Johnny shook his head in frustration. “Guess I need to move closer.”

He set the throttle to full speed. The ship lurched briefly then suddenly jumped in speed, jostling around as if something had been grabbed onto it.

“Mister Roger, I advise you—” the radio went silent.

“There we go,” Johnny said. “That was just distracting me.”

“I will strap myself down,” Thomas said, as another rumble hit the exterior.

“Please do so,” Johnny said. Red bolts, nearly thick as the freighter itself whizzed by the cockpit window. He pushed down on the wheel as hard as he could, the inertia pushed him further back into his seat.

The wheel jerked around violently as another rumble shook the ship. A seismic wave of crashing metal echoed from behind him.

“Are you alright!” Johnny yelled.

“I am undamaged!” Thomas replied.

A green light lit up somewhere beneath him. He pulled at the lever. The whine from before grew and grew, finally resolving with a high pitched yelp. The blue and white lights of hyperspace lit up the skies.

Johnny unstrapped himself, and walked into the lounge area, plopping himself down onto one of the beds.

“That’s it,” Johnny said with a sigh. “It’s done.”

Thomas unhooked himself from the holotable and strode over to his side. “You have done well. I would not have been capable of flying so effectively against our enemy.”

“Thanks,” Johnny looked out of the cockpit window from where he sat. It was a kind gesture from Thomas, an act he would forever cherish as he had with the brothers. But with the freeing of processing power, the memory of Henry and Todd came surging back into his head. He laid back into the bed, sinking deeper into the mattress. He could almost imagine still being in his room back on the farm, his only worries being that of the crop and what lessons he would be taught next.

He brought his hand to the artificial light overhead, playing with it as it shone through his fingers just as he’d done back on the farm. ‘Is this what Henry and Todd felt like?’ Their voices came back to him as he replayed the last of their conversations together.

A jolt coursed through his body as he sat up. ‘That note, it makes more sense now.’ He jumped to his feet and strapped himself back into the pilot’s seat. ‘They’d want me to move on, just like their father said.’ With one hand, he pulled the hat from his waist and slid his fingers across it’s smooth brown exterior. ‘I will make sure you aren’t forgotten. You will live through me, through this coat, this hat, my voice, I will make sure everyone hears you, just as I promised’

The ship lurched, as they exited hyperspace. He looked back up with renewed vigor and set course for the city of Ghorma.