NiteDawn/12925
“All I need is a simple recording of the rite to immortality,” Trooper A sighed to himself. He was stuck in Dreshdae on one of the Hag’s crazy errands. He was not sure why it was so important to get ahold of the writings. Trooper A was convinced the old Hag had already achieved immortality, such as it was. If being old, crotchety and dementia ridden was the cost of living forever, he would gladly pass.
Trooper A dragged his thoughts back to the present as he reflected on the mess that was Connor Grey. Someone, or thing, had gotten to the arms trader before he had. Not surprising since the idiot decided it was a good idea to advertise he had a rare rite that belonged to the Sith. His hole-in-the-wall shop was partially melted from thermal detonators. The rest being shot up with precision, every artifact nothing but pieces.
“He is still alive,” Bitch stated it as fact. “Classic misdirection.”
“That thought does remain, but confirming his current condition isn’t why I have been here for two weeks. The rite wasn’t among the pieces of wreckage.” Trooper A pointed out. A thorough going over had revealed that he hadn’t been the first to go through the pile of debris, and that the rite wasn’t there.
“A runner of his portent would have several escape measures and a backup plan.”
“If he was crafty, he wouldn’t have advertised he had the Rite.” Trooper A grumbled. “Unless he figured out what he had and decided it was too hot and let the first opportunist come by and take it.”
“Possible, but shows a bad business model on Grey’s end.”
Trooper A did his best to ignore the voice going on in his head about how She would have done it if she had found the rite. It was odd that Bitch was actually showing any interest at all in a simple arms dealer. Yes he dealt in relics from time to time, but what was that to an advanced AI?
“Let’s ignore Grey for the moment and focus on where the Rite actually is,” Trooper A suggested. He was sitting outside a small watering hole, doing his best to observe the crowd without drawing attention to himself. It was easier than other places. Being fully armored and hiding it with a bulky coat was the dress code for Dreshdae.
“I would find Synin Torin,” Bitch repeated for the umpteenth time. “He arrived here a week before we did. He certainly has the motive and skill to pull off what was done to Connor Grey.”
“I am not disagreeing with you, but, he is a little difficult to approach don’t you think?”
“Not at all.” Bitch said with a sniff. “Speaking of which look to your four o’clock.”
Trooper A had already spotted the psychotic engineer before Bitch alerted him. It was hard to miss a dark cloaked figure with force corruption displayed on his face. He didn’t bother to hide it. His hair matched the picture that Trooper A had of the engineer; still unkempt and streaked with grease. What stood out the most though, and which caused even hardened criminals to give Synin a wide birth was his three droids; specifically a menacing looking battle droid.
“Sooooo,” Trooper A drawled out. “Which droid is going to meet with an unfortunate accident first?”
Bitch ignored Trooper A as she worked through the readings that she was getting from the Unsane sensors. Something was poking at her defenses, and she was running on a 99% probability that it was the battle droid doing it. She was unsure how the droid was able to pull it off, it was actually intriguing.
“I can feel your distraction,” Trooper A whispered in a mocking Jedi manner.
“Doubtful,” Bitch responded, annoyed at the sack of meat constantly interrupting her. “You aren’t that sensitive to the force and I have no access to it.”
“That sensitive?” Trooper A said a little hurt at the insult. He might not be able to use the force outside of his body, but he thought he was very attuned to it. “Compared to whom?”
“The Lady,” Bitch’s name for the Old Hag that had made Trooper A’s life more than interesting.
Trooper A thought the comparison a bit unfair. “Anything compared to the old Hag would come up extremely short in any matter concerning the force.”
“I have a limited pool of force users I can compare.”
“You have three,” mumbled Trooper A. “And comparing me to Dawn is almost as bad as comparing me to the Hag.”
“Why?” Bitch was actually interested in the reaction Trooper A had by even the thought of being compared to the two other force users she had working knowledge of.
“They are both insane,” Trooper A spelled it out. He took a moment to glare off the few unwanted eavesdroppers.
“From the reaction of the crowd, I would say you are the crazy one.”
“Keep it up, Bitch,” Trooper A muttered. He was hoping it wasn’t audible. The implant he had in his head allowed uninterrupted communication with Bitch, the overly advanced AI who resided on the Old Hag’s ship the Unsane. But Trooper A often wondered how much Bitch could actually pick up from the implant.
“The battle droid is coming over.” Bitch informed.
“I know,” Trooper A said, not sure why he knew. He hadn’t been keeping an eye on the group. Droids weren’t living, he shouldn’t have felt them. If he hadn’t been focusing he probably wouldn’t have noticed it. But when he felt the odd presence around the thick cloud that was Torin, he was sure it was coming from the droids, even if the rational part of his mind was telling him it was impossible. Now that one was walking over he was sure of it.
“What do you want?” Trooper A said in way of greeting.
“The droid ignored him, its focus was on Trooper A’s forehead.
“It’s saying hello,” Bitch almost sounded flattered.
“I don’t hear anything,” Trooper A said not bothering to whisper.
“It is using the data link I established to communicate.”
“What does it want?”
Bitch was silent as she slapped away some of the more intrusive probes. “It’s curious.”
“That isn’t possible for a droid.” Trooper A pointed out.
“It shouldn’t be,” Bitch corrected. “Curiosity is unique to only two intelligence programs that I am aware of, myself and my sister.”
“Perhaps it has to do with the dark force leaking out of it.” Trooper A pointed out. There wasn’t a scanner capable of locating force, only other force wielders could do so.
“Explain,” Bitch said fully aware of the mechanics of the force, at least until they changed to follow the greater law of convenience.
“It is how I felt the droids. Someone infused them with force.” Trooper A pushed his senses out further confirming the droid was holding force. “Is there nothing this concept can’t do?”
“The droids can use force?” Bitch sounded almost giddy.
“Not sure ‘use’ is the correct term. As that thing is standing here I feel the pull it has. However, I am getting nothing else. I don’t know if it is aware it even has it.”
“I am aware,” the voice was very tinee. Something Trooper A would not expect emanating from a Droid designed to kill.
“You can speak,” Trooper A said slathering on sarcasm. The droid only glared at him, yellow optical sockets shrinking to slits.
“You will allow access to your owner.” It wasn’t a question.
Trooper A wasn’t sure what that meant. Bitch’s giggling filled in the gap. “She is not my owner.” Trooper A said through gritted teeth.
The droid didn’t believe him as it raised its right arm pointing a blaster directly at Trooper A’s head.
“He doesn’t believe you,” Bitch said still filled with mirth.
Trooper A did not share the merriment. “How is this funny?” He was more annoyed than worried, though having a battle droid point a weapon at your person certainly warranted attention. “Blowing my head off will not aid you.”
“He’s holding you hostage,” Bitch said laughing. This was making her year.
“All so it can talk to you? If it is already doing that, why does it need me?”
“I am playing hard to access.”
“With me as collateral?” Trooper A was not amused at all.
“He is having to use his own link. It is very limiting. He has concluded that since I am able to link with messy flesh, I should be able to establish a strong link with him.”
“When did the droid get a gender pronoun?” Trooper A didn’t bother paying attention to the reason Bitch gave him. “Care to tell it to back off?” There was a long pause, “Bitch!?”
“It’s flattering,” Bitch said.
“Not helpful.”
“Fine, I can data spike him. That should give you two tenths of a second.”
Not a lot, but it would be enough, he hoped. Droid reactions should far surpass flesh ones, no matter what some people think. To fight a droid you had to interrupt their ability to calculate and process data. Or overload them.
Trooper A felt the spike and immediately attacked the droid. Channeling the force Trooper A accelerated, unsheathing a vibroblade with one hand, knocking the blaster away with the other. He dragged the vibroblade across the droid slicing through the knocked away arm. Trooper A finished the move by doubling back on his initial slice and slamming the blade into the droid’s neck. As he moved to extract the blade to make another stab the blade stuck firm in the droids neck. The laminanium had liquefied around the blade and held it firm.
“He’s not finished.” Bitch noted.
“I know,” Trooper A said catching the swinging left arm aimed at his head. He heard the quit hiss of releasing gas and felt everything begin to burn. Instead of coma gas Torin had fitted his battle droid with a corrosive mixture. Trooper A now regretted not wearing his helmet. He held his breath as he drew his blaster and unloaded into the droid’s lower abdomen. The laminanium absorbed several shots but eventually was overloaded allowing a few blasts to melt away the delicate insides. With sparks and a loud pop the droid shuddered. The droid lost the ability to stand allowing a thoroughly pissed off Trooper A to throw it on the ground.
Waving the gas away and spraying his exposed flesh with a general neutralizer he took several shallow breaths to appease his lungs. Channeling the force into the body taxed the body beyond measure. It was comparable to running a full marathon in a second. Looking down at his assailant Trooper A was tempted to finish off the droid, but he thought better of it.

“He’s active,” Bitch announced.
“Still with the pronoun?” Trooper A mumbled. He stepped infront of the retrained droid. “Greetings Bob.”
“He says that isn’t his designation.”
Trooper A rolled his eyes. He wasn’t in the mood to humor a droid that sprayed some mystery irritant that forced him to spend two hours in a cleaning room getting it off his coat, armor and skin. Trooper A kneeled down to stare eye to artificial eye with the droid. “Bob, if you don’t start talking to me, directly, I will start extracting parts.”
“He doesn’t care,” Bitch replied. “Says Synin Torin will take great pleasure dissecting you.”
Trooper A shrugged. He was fine with Synin stopping by. That was actually the whole point of dragging the battle droid back to the room that he had rented out for the month. He had no doubt a paranoid like Synin would have trackers on his droids and that he knew exactly where they were. Trooper A only needed to know if Synin himself would show up or another droid would make an appearance.
“We have company,” Bitch sighed. “The assassin droid is coming.”
“That is some convenient timing.” Trooper A said. “Please avoid breaking it, I need to send it back once you are done with it.”
“I will deal with it quickly, it has no awareness. Not like the battle droid.” Bitch was disappointed. She had hoped that Synin was an engineer with a unique ability to infuse machines with awareness as well as force.
True to her word Bitch put the ASN-121 through a gauntlet of scramblers and data mines that scrambled the droids processing abilities to the point of it being barely capable of flight. Trooper A looked at the shivering droid, it had force in it as well. Trooper A was impressed. Synin wasn’t just a crazy engineer, if he was able to infuse machines with force they could be far more capable against other force users. The possibilities were a little unsettling.
Trooper A filed that little bit of information away and went to work sealing the dismembered right arm of the battle droid to the ASN. He sent it back to its maker with a very clear message. If Synin really was as fanatic about his droids as the rumors hinted at, he would be at the meeting place, and probably spitting blood.

Trooper A was all smiles, contrasting with Synin’s scowls. The man was certainly a site. He looked even worse than he did yesterday. Eyes were more sunken, force corruption was all over his face now. He was actually bleeding from his eyes.
“You will return what is mine,” Synin shouted.
Trooper A felt the words more than heard them. The force compulsion was thick in the words. “Force tricks don’t work on me.” Trooper A said redoubling his smile.
Synin ignored the human trying again. He was focused on reaching his battle droid. He was well restrained not allowing movement. But if Synin could reach the intelligence inside he could cope. He needed the cold calculating presence. He barely felt it, when he did he latched on, totally oblivious that Trooper A had closed distance and was now pointing a blaster at him.
Synin smiled through cracked lips, “You are a fool.”
Trooper A held up his other hand, “Please no mono-logging. All I want is a peak at what you acquired from Connor.”
“I don’t…”
Trooper A interrupted, “Pulled the data from your battle droid. You have it.”
Synin only glared. “Return what is mine!” He screeched.
Trooper A looked back at Bob, opening himself up to an attack. “Is he always like this?” The droid glared at him. “We talked about this,” Trooper A warned.
“My master,” the droid hesitated, “needs his droids as an anchor. Without us he is incomplete.”
Trooper A returned his attention to the man having what looked like a panic attack. “I would suggest you convince him it is in his best interest to meet my demands. After that he can pretend this was a bad trip on spice.” Trooper A directed his comments to Bob even though he was staring down Synin.
Synin looked at his battle droid who nodded slightly. “Fine,” Synin said throwing a sack at Trooper A’s feet. “Take it and be gone.”
“Interesting,” Bitch observed. “Synin looked like he got permission from his droid before he released the Rite.”
“Don’t care,” Trooper A said scanning the sack to make sure it wasn’t explosive. Keeping the blaster trained on Synin he removed several objects from the sack. He didn’t understand any of it, but didn’t need to. Bitch took detailed scans and recordings of everything. Trooper A then put everything back tossing the sack back at Synin. Trooper A didn’t have time to quip something pithy as Synin rushed past him to unleash his droid.
“Kill!” Synin commanded spittle flying from his mouth.
Trooper A looked at the droid and then at Synin, then back to the droid. “I disarmed him, and he is missing his blaster arm. He has already fought me once and lost, and he actually is aware in many respects. Most importantly he has gained the ability for self-preservation.”
Trooper A was talking to the back of Synin’s head as the squealing lunatic was busy shouting at his droid, who to the great shock of Synin, backhanded the man in mid rant. The hit was brutal and unexpected. Synin didn’t block it allowing the full force of the hit. Trooper A knew from the sound that the jaw was broken.
“Okay,” Trooper A said whistling. “I think that wraps things up here.”
The droid simply stared down at the unconscious body covered in dust and drool. “I know you kept one of the pieces of the Rite with you. Don’t worry, I don’t care.” The battle droid said. “If this flesh sack attained immortality it would be intolerable.”
“Yeah, I am leaving now.”

Trooper A presented his findings to the Old Hag who was far too busy laughing at him to make any sense of her. Whatever she wanted from the Rite she must have gotten.