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“Whoa-ho-ho!” Kay awed, her eyes glued towards the holoprojector in the crew lounge of the Trailblazer.
ND-5 was doing a routine calibration to the ship’s targeting computer, utilizing his free time during their latest hyperspeed jump for something meaningful, but the old commando found it difficult to concentrate since he had heard this same sound three other times now from his seat in the cockpit. Kay’s vocal cues aside, all of it was ascertaining the scenario that she was more than likely just trying to get his attention. He stood and made his way to her, waiting for her eyes to flick to him, acknowledging his presence, before he dared ask any follow-up questions he was sure would be… taxing.
“Kay?”
“Oh, hey ND, great timing!” She lied, knowing full-well her intentions to summon him forth. She gestured to the staticky footage with a grin to match the levels of her subtle scheming and continued, “You should come watch with me!”
“What are you watching?”
“I found some old security tapes in that last warehouse.”
“Riveting.”
She shot him a glare when he didn’t sound nearly excited enough for her liking.
“No, no, really!” she insisted. “It’s all old Clone Wars stuff! There’s even some BX-units on it.”
ND-5 felt himself straighten slightly. “Then I would advise against watching these data-tapes. I doubt the content would be very pleasant.”
“It’s all in the past. Nothing we can do about it now. I gotta say though, that BX-trio was brutal, but also kinda impressive. Glad I wasn’t there.”
“Yes, you would have been destroyed,” he admitted dryly.
ND-5 paused as he stood to watch the footage himself. The unit she mentioned tore through the doors, trained precision in firing blasters upon the first room of guards, swapping to vibroblades to carve out the turbo lifts and climb the walls. Once nearer to their assigned target’s floor, they took a 3-point leap, one droid keeping watch over the other’s blind spots before reappearing. They dodged blaster fire, springing into a block formation along the hall corridor before the rear unit took out the gunner. It was a clean infiltration, though the loss of lives, clone lives notwithstanding, seemed almost regrettable. Understandable… but regrettable.
“These tapes seem just as morbid as I anticipated. What about this footage is so impressive to you, Kay?”
“I dunno?” she shrugged. “I know it’s tragic and all, they made the clones so normal people didn’t have to die which seems like kind of a sleemo thing in its own right, but morality aside... I mean... it’s kinda… cool seeing your model in its heyday. They’re all so fast and agile, and did you see the way they were jumping around like it was nothing? Could you do that? Jump around and leap from the walls like that?”
“Yes,” his voice sounded almost perplexed at his own response.
“Will you?”
“No.” Now it swapped back to sounding cynical.
Kay flopped against the back of the seat with a sigh. “Why not? Where were those assassin moves back on Akiva?”
“Yes, well sorry to disappoint, but my joints have not been able to function like that for nearly 15 standard cycles.”
“Dang. Sorry to hear that.” She looked down, got one of her “bright idea” faces and just as she opened up her mouth to speak, he already knew the response required. “But, what if we—”
“Replacement parts will not fix the issue,” he supplied. “Can we drop it?”
Kay held up both hands in surrender. “Fiiiine. Topic change then. Did you have one of the cool swords like those guys? I guess I always pegged you as more of a blasters guy?”
She mimicked the motion of shooting and he watched her with a thoughtful amusement momentarily overcoming the growing annoyance in his code.
“I am well-versed in the upkeep and utilization of many weapons. Snipers, blaster rifles, vibro-blades— Though, I prefer smaller arms that are easy to carry and just as effective.”
“And better to sneak in places under long, green coats, huh?”
ND stared for a long moment in the way Kay imagined would read as a pointed glare if he had more expressive eyes. Even without it, she could clearly tell most emotions despite his sullen silence.
“You’re sighing, aren’t you?”
“I’m a droid, Kay. I do not sigh.”
“No, but you have a little—” she motioned her neck slightly. “—Like this movement that you mimic. It’s cute.”
He stood a bit taller, shifting his weight to appear more intimidating.
“And that’s you pouting.” She chuckled, stifling it when he didn’t seem as amused. “Ahem! Uh, anyway, back to the holos… I heard one of the BX units copy the voices of one of the clones. Gadeek said once that commandos used to trick people into lowering their defenses because the voices were so realistic.”
“Yes, all BX units were equipped with advanced vocabulators capable of imitation, though it wasn’t as foolproof an impersonation if one lacked the speech patterns or cadence that made the mimicry sound more believable.”
“So, your voice now… is that yours-yours, or did you like… copy it?”
“I merely adapted to sound more organic in my time with Jaylen. It simplified things, and later, I grew to prefer it.”
“Ah, I see, but even though you have more natural sounding range now, you still don’t sigh or grumble, even when I’m sure you want to. I’ve heard you thinking out loud before, a “hmm” or “uhh”. What makes those other sounds any different?”
“I—” He paused. “—Don’t know. Those sounds just make more sense to me.”
“I’ve heard astromech’s sigh before, and they only speak binary. Even Nix lets out a sigh sometimes, don'tcha buddy?”
The merqaal gave off a series of affirmative chirps, followed by a stretch as it curled up in Kay's lap, the sigh either a demonstration or a coincidence, but ND-5 wasn't sure which.
Instead, the droid placed both hands on his hips, his patience waning. “Why do you even care about this, Kay?”
Another shrug. “Just curious about my partner. You obviously have the ability to feel all the emotions needed to want to sigh. You just don't and I feel like you should.”
He stared at her for several long seconds, hoping to translate his irritation, but unfortunately it seemed to only make her grin widen since he was actively proving her point. The sound would admittedly come in handy, especially for occasions like these when Kay decided to ask too many invasive or irregular personal questions.
“Just try it!” she urged. “Like this. Listen!” She let out a breathy example and motioned back to him to attempt it, repeating a flick of her hand the longer he stood there protesting the idea.
Eventually he factored the conversation would end quicker if he just played along.
“S̸̼̼̪̺͊͛̅͝i̶̳͖̋̏̆g̴͔̮͓͌̈́ͅḧ̶͈̥͉͖́̾̽͝”
The sound that erupted from his vocoder could generously be described as hard static blended against several consonants that had no business being clumped together like he attempted. Judging from Kay’s facial expression, and coupled with Nix fleeing the bench while hissing at him, ND deduced that he did not succeed in the attempt.
“I tried to warn you.”
“Nah, you’re just overthinking it! Don’t think about it like a bunch of letters strung together. Think about it like— like a feeling!”
He tilted his head incredulously.
“—Letting all of your inner thoughts out, and letting them go in one new sound. Sigh.”
If he were capable of rolling his eyes, he would, favoring a small head shake instead.
“Just try it again. You could even try to mix it up if one is a little easier. Like me, see? Sigh… Huff... Pfft… Easy.”
“<<Easy.>>” He mocked her voice, causing Kay’s brows to shoot all the way to the top of her forehead.
“O—kay, that was kind of scary good…”
“I know.”
“Well see, if you can do that, you can do all the rest. Come on!”
“Why is this so important to you?”
“We’re gonna be in hyperspace for a little longer anyway… It’s not like there’s anything else to do.”
“So, instead of letting me finish my calibrations, you’re pestering me because you’re bored?”
“No!” She snipped. “It's not like you have to do those right now, and like I said, I also think it’ll be good for you to be more expressive! Humor me, will you? Just try it again.”
This time he rolled his whole neck on an arc, but returned to see the woman just sitting there with that eager gleam in her eye, that meddling irritation of pushing him out of his comfort zone, that for reasons unknown, caused her so much excitement. For some reason, seeing her reaction likewise caused him to catalog his grievances into a subsect that was the polar opposite to their intention. Kay’s prying nature somehow swapped to being endearing to him, and once such a glitch made it past his actuators, he knew there was nothing else he could do about it.
Sighing was an organic's way of expressing responses to psychological and physiologic catalysts; emotions like stress, anxiety, sadness, frustration, contentment, relief, or awe. Some droids were designed to mimic these emotions, and while ND wasn't exactly designed to reciprocate, he had evolved past many of his primary functions long, long ago. Technically, he would be well within his rights to such an expression, but working under Jaylen, he never found the need. He doubted the man would have appreciated the sound if he had.
“Fine. I have one other idea I could use to attempt the response, but this is the last, Kay. I mean it.”
She held up her hands, simultaneously surrendering as she agreed to his terms.
After a moment, he forced the chassis fan nearest the heuristic processor in his head to whirl especially hard, allowing a bit of air to escape through the slits in his speaker grille, the sound giving off the deepest mimicry of released breath he could manage, with only the slightest hint of harmonic vibration included.
*Sigh*
Kay’s excitement seemed to swell, her vitals spiking as she hopped to her knees with a clap. “That’s it! That’s the one!”
He took his hand and placed it against her face, veering her off-kilter as she collapsed into the cushions with a small “oof!”
Nix saw the playful antics and began racing around ND’s feet as he turned to go back to his seat, Kay recovering enough to throw a cushion after him, though the droid was able to easily detect and sidestep it.
“Don’t run off! There’s still more sounds we can work on! I bet it’ll be funny if you can mimic how to yawn! Ooh, or growl! Think of how cool that'd be!”
*Sigh*