4 Chapter 4
Disclaimer: The only thing I own is the oc. Animes, video games, movies and books referenced in this fic are owned by their respective creators and companies.
AN: This is an alternative Universe. For Star Wars it is a mix of Disney Cannon and Legends Cannon. There will be things that may have been sped up, slowed down, removed completely in the timeline. I'll try to keep it as close as I can.
"Speech"
Thoughts/letters/emails
Chapter 4
William had woken up with a bad feeling in his gut. If he were back home, he would have joked that there was a disturbance in the force. Now he genuinely wondered if it was an actual disturbance in the force. He just had a bad feeling he couldn't explain. William had never been one to ignore his gut. He set about finalizing many things. His ship wouldn't be finished for another 17 months. With the help of Hydra, his specialized Hacking AI, he had been able to make multiple copies of Hydra and stash them in numerous places, just in case he were to lose his Datapad, he would be able to activate One of Hydra's many heads via the Holonet. One of the positives about being stuck on Geonosis was that he was able to explore the droid foundries by himself. He had secretly been building a droid. He had used the droid parts in the foundries but he had done a complete overhaul on the programming.
---Flashback---
William had always been a fan of HK-47 when he was a kid playing Knights of the Old Republic. He had decided to build himself a droid and smuggle it offworld as his Plan B. He had Hydra scour the holonet dark web for assassin droid coding and protocol droid coding. He would not make himself an HK-47 but he would build himself an equivalent. He had worked on the droid in secret and he was lucky he had based the droid's personality matrix with a bit of Hydra's code. Hydra couldn't really be considered an AI because it didn't really have a personality matrix. It was more like a very intuitive hacking program.
William had been very surprised to find the schematics for a particular droid in the foundry servers.He found the schematics for the BX series droids. They were badasses in the Clone Wars show and in the Star Wars battlefront game. They were the droid equivalent of ninjas. They were close to completion and the foundry had the required components to build them but the company had yet to build them for some reason. It was found under a research and development sub file, he knew that he was in an alternate universe because he was in it and he had found some discrepancies from the shows and movies but this was huge. It meant that the Separatists were further along in their weapons technology but were slower to implement. He was glad that the facility he found the server at was a fairly hidden one that had been missed by other teams. He and Hydra had made sure that the file would be destroyed after they had used the schematics to create a droid chassis that would be able to function without his direct control. William had cut off any outside connections to the Geonosian Corporation that built the droids and then quickly set about further customizing the droid.
He had remembered that in the show, the droids had a huge weakness. The head and necks were structurally weaker than the rest of the chassis. The first thing he did was customize the head and necks to use stronger materials. He then added very small cameras on the sides and back of the head to allow the droid better vision. He had to enlarge the head to be able to add the components along with its brain. He then decided to add a secondary brain in the chest area. It had caused him to enlarge the torso to just a bit bigger than an average human torso. He had added EMP hardened shielding on the brain in its chest and head. He added a retractable vibro blade in one of its forearms and a retractable computer interface spike in the other forearm. He had also added retractable claws to the fingers and feet.
The chassis customizations were fairly minimal and only added a little bit of weight. The droid would be 5'10" in height and according to the schematics would be very agile. The real game changer had been the coding for the protocols. The existing protocols were already very good. The droid had top of the line weapons, combat, interrogation and strategy protocols but the biggest problem had been that it was all stock. Whether it's a car, computer or droid everyone knows that custom mods usually increase performance. That being said, the dark web on the holonet yielded many illegal but effective upgrades. The droid's new programming could be considered a master work of coding. The new droid not only had more knowledge in a wide variety of subjects but with its additional computing power thanks to the secondary brain it would be able to self customize its protocols to be more efficient. The droid would adapt quicker and process information faster than any other battle droids on the market. William thought that it would have made HK-47 proud. He did hard code its loyalty to him as its prime directive just as Revan did with HK-47. William wouldn't have a Skynet situation.
He had fired up the foundry and had watched as the automated assembly line built his droid. Once completed he erased the schematics and wired the foundry to blow. He connected his datapad and downloaded the programming into the droid. Once downloaded he decided to wait for its initial start up. He had placed the droid near the closest thermal detonator just in case it went crazy once he started it up. He didn't have to wait long, the droid started up and after it had scanned the room it spoke for the first time.
"Identify yourself within 5 seconds or prepare for deletion." the droid spoke.
William was taken out of his surprise by the droid's mechanical voice and gave his reply in english. "Sometimes reasonable men must do unreasonable things, identity: William Guerrera."
The droid's red eyes flashed, then it responded in english, "Identity confirmed. William Guerrera designation, master." The droid stood up and looked into William's eyes. "Greetings master, how can this one serve?"
William's eyes hardened for a moment before his mouth quirked up into a grin. "Greetings, From now on your designation is JW-1000. I'm very glad to meet you. Your help will be invaluable. Run a self diagnostic and if everything is green across the board, arm yourself and review your mission parameters and initiate the mission."
The droid's eyes flashed once more. "Affirmative, mission objectives and parameters have been reviewed. I will start right away, master. I will contact you when the first mission objective is complete." The droid bowed its head then walked over to a metal crate and started to equip itself with weapons. It picked up a DC-17 blaster rifle and two DC-15 blaster pistols that William had left for it along with some ammo. Once armed it showed its agility by jumping up to a catwalk and ran in the direction of the Geonosian foundry which housed the ships.
William walked away and he made his way out; he destroyed the foundry. He reported that the foundry he had just been in had been booby trapped and warned HQ of possible sabotage on other locations.
---Flashback End---
William had woken up to that bad feeling and as his day went on it only got worse. He received orders for him to take some regular troopers on a scouting mission to a location which had shown strange readings on a scan. Neither he or the troopers had been happy with the mission but they armed up and 15 minutes later they had been on a transport to the location. They had separated and the troopers were sent to scout out the western section of the foundry and he went to scout the northern section along with two other troopers.
They had been moving as silently as the two other troopers could manage when all hell broke loose. They had walked into an ambush. They had unfortunately only realized that after one of the troopers had been taken out by a sniper droideka. William and the remaining trooper ran behind cover just as more droids and Geonosians started to spill out of all the nooks and crannies of the area. They tried to radio in to both warn the other team and request back up from HQ but the comms had been jammed.
The two had been pinned down behind some crates by an assembly line they were putting up one hell of a fight then William saw someone he had not ever wanted to run into. A tall android covered in a cloak coughed a few times then they heard it speak.
"You are trapped, throw down your weapons and surrender or we will kill you." General Grievous yelled over to them.
William knew the tricky bastard was just baiting them but he decided to make the tough call. "Listen to me brother, you may not get along with me but this is way out of your league. I'm going to give you an opportunity to run and when I do, run as fast as you can to either regroup with the other squad or get clear and radio for backup. On 3."
The trooper wanted to disagree but knew that it was the best plan they had. He hesitantly nodded. William patted him on the shoulder then nodded back. He pulled out an ion grenade and readied his rifle. "1...2...3!'' William threw the grenade and once it went off he opened fire on the droids. He covered as the trooper ran back the way they came from. William shot as many of the incapacitated droids as he could before receiving a salvo of rifle fire back from the remaining droids. He wove between cover as he took shots when he could all the while Grievous just laughed at his efforts. The battle raged for what felt like hours but had in reality only been mere minutes. William saw that hisi chances of getting out were slim but he saw a chance after taking some more droids out. He threw his remaining ion grenade and a smoke grenade. He wove though some more cover avoiding blaster rifle fire and just as he was a few feet away from a narrow hallway that would have led to his escape he heard a whooshing sound that reminded him of helicopter blades.
William didn't get a chance to ponder the sound for very long before he found out first hand what had caused it. His leg had just been sliced off at the calf by a flying lightsaber. William roared in pain but attempted to roll into the hallway where he had a better chance to put up a defense. Reality decided to give William a wake up call. Grievous had moved faster than William had accounted for and used another lightsaber to slice off his left arm just above the elbow. The shock of pain that he experienced was by far the worst pain he had ever experienced. His above average pain tolerance had only managed to keep him conscious long enough to feel Grievous slice his other leg. The pain became too much as he was blacking out. He took solace in the fact that his datapad had been destroyed when his arm was sliced off. He would hate to think what the emperor would be able to do with his Hydra program.
---
As William was being cut up and then captured the other squad was in a frenzied battle for survival. Half the squad had been killed in the initial ambush. The trooper that had been with William had managed to make it to the squad's location just in time to watch the last of the squad be overrun and killed; he continued his sprint to get out of the tunnel system and get clear and radio for back up. He had made it out of the tunnel and was making his way to a boulder to hide when a blaster bolt went through his back and exited his chest. He didn't know what had happened but all of a sudden he couldn't breathe. He would never get a chance to figure out why because a second blast took his head off.
---
It had been a week since JW-1000 had left his master to carry out his orders. It had taken him 2 days to find a hyperspace cable ship but he had found one in the abandoned shipyard. He had boarded it and using his hacking spike was able to hack it and was able to pilot it out of the shipyard. It had taken him another day before he found a hole in the orbital blockade. He was able to avoid most of the blockade and was able to jump to hyperspace before he could be trapped in a tractor beam or shot out of space.
JW-1000 had arrived on the Sienar orbital shipyard and been greeted by one of the VIP account managers. He had been able to provide the proper documentation to prove he had his master's authority to make deals. He had reviewed the progress of his masters ship and was quite impressed by the design and specs. He had also been able to order a few more things to either be upgraded or added to the ship that would aid his master. He decided to stay in the space station and supervise the construction. He had already gone on the holonet and had ordered the new droids that would be added to the ship as its crew. He would have to upgrade the droids himself but with the instructions his master had left him it would be a simple task. For the following 17 months he would supervise the progress of the ship, order supplies, reprogram and upgrade the droids and continue to accrue wealth for his master either by hacking or investing in the stock market. He had also been tasked with obtaining as many star charts of the galaxy as he could so that they could be compiled by the navigation astromech which would in turn upload the info in the ships navigation systems once the ship was completed. He had everything set up and had notified the account manager that he would be leaving for Coruscant and would return before the ship was completed. JW-1000 had been given a lift to Coruscant by one of the delivery ships that would be going that way soon. He had a very important mission to complete for his master.
---
Sheev Palpitine AKA Darth Sidious was in his office doing paperwork. Outwardly one could see him smiling pleasantly and doing his paperwork. Inwardly Sidious was cackling with glee. After he had defeated his master Darth Plageius, He had gone through all of the old muun's files and to say he had been pleasantly surprised would be an understatement. He had discovered his master's memoirs, holocron and research notes. The notes had inspired him to research the very interesting prospect of cloning force sensitives. He had just obtained equipment meant for experimentation and cloning from the secret cloning facility in Cartao. He would experiment with his foolish master and the clone of his own foolish apprentice. He couldn't wait to be able to sneak off world and do some of the experiments on his two new lab rats personally.
---
The HQ in Geonosis was a hive of activity, which was ironic considering they were fighting an insectoid species and their droid army. HQ had discovered the remains of the scout force they had sent to investigate some strange readings from an abandoned foundry. They did not receive any reports back and after 6 hours of waiting they sent another team. The other team returned with the mutilated pieces of their brethren. What really shocked the troopers, especially the Special Forces Commandos, was that XC-0187 never returned and all that was left of him was his limbs. It was a somber day for the camp. Williams's second in command went through William's things and found a datapad in his trunk. It had only one file. It was a note that simply stated that in the event of his death all his stuff was to go to 99 and that his remains were to be burned and his ashes to be given to Walon Vau so he may spread them on Mandalore. Normally that wasn't how things worked in the Grand Army but William or Kratos as he was known to his second in command was notorious for ignoring stupid rules or orders and he would have wanted to give 99 his things.
His second in command put all his things in his storage locker and foot locker into one large metal crate and had it loaded to be shipped back to Kamino. He had his Commander's remains burned. He and his men paid their respects and were joined by many who although may not have got along with him respected that he cared for his brothers. The ashes were packed and were sent via troopers back to Kamino where they would contact Walon Vau and let him know of Kratos' Death. William's ashes had just cleared the atmosphere when battle erupted on the planet's surface. The beginning skirmishes of what would later become the second Battle of Geonosis had just kicked off.
---
99 had just finished putting away the rifle cleaning supplies and was on his way to his squad bay to read one of Kratos' many stories. His little brother had such a vivid imagination. He turned the corner into the hallway to his bay but stopped as he spotted some of his brothers and a hard faced Walon Vau. 99 immediately knew why they were waiting for him. He felt the tears form in his eyes but he forced himself to not shed them. He straightened up as much as he could and met the eyes of his brothers and Walon Vau.
"I see you know why we are here. It's just like the adiik said, you are more intelligent than you give yourself credit for. He wanted you to have his things which have been left in your room. We will have a small memorial service for him, later tonight I will send someone to come and get you." Walon having said his piece he walked away.
99 continued into his room but was stopped by the troopers who gave him a pat on the shoulder to show that they were saddened by the loss. 99 entered his squad bay and for the first time really felt the loneliness of the room. He made his way to the metal crate and opened the crate. The sides of the crate slid back on to themselves and he was able to access the items within. He saw a few weapons and a spare helmet. He gingerly set those aside. Next he found a data pad with William's note. He read the very simple and short note and smiled as he could just imagine the exasperated tone of his little brother when he read it. He picked up the datapad and as his fingers touched the datapad a new file was available. He clicked on it and read.
99,
If you are reading this then I've died. Don't mourn me for too long brother, it is not necessary. I along with all my brothers come from Mandalorian blood and as you know a few of us have taken to that culture more deeply than some. One of our greatest beliefs is shereshoy, the lust for life that all true Mandalorians should believe. We didn't choose to be born or to be soldiers for a war we had nothing to do with but I refuse to let our circumstances take away from my shereshoy. I urge you and our brothers to do the same. In the hidden compartment of my foot locker you will find something I had made for you, I unfortunately wasn't able to complete it before I left home but I did during my time on Geonosis. Its custom vambraces with hold out blasters and a special set of braces for you. It should help you get around better. The Kaminoans may consider you defective and not want to put the effort into helping you with your disability but I will not. I hope my gifts are useful to you and help you in the future. I have also added more stories into this datapad. Please give the file titled The Art of War to my Mandalorian instructors. You know who they are. I hope that you will add it to the database so the cadets and our brothers can have something to help them when they are being run down by all the training and worries of war. I hope you like the schematics I left for the helper droid I designed for you. You should have that Tech kid in the so-called Bad Batch build it for you. Lastly, Continue to be a great man, brother. Continue to look after our brothers and home.
See you on the other side,
Your Little Brother.
99 couldn't hold his tears back any longer, he let them fall silently as he smiled at his little brother's note. He wiped his tears away and connected the notepad to the database and created a file with his stories. He knew he might get into trouble with the Kaminoans but he would ask the instructors to help him fulfill his little brother's last wish when he gave them the files his little brother wished for them to have. He sent a message to Tech to have him help him with the droid and with his new braces. It didn't take Tech long to arrive and find out William's fate and was more than happy to help 99 with his braces and to build the droid. Tech had always idolised his big brother not only for being extremely intelligent but for helping him out when he was a young cadet.
---
The Mandalorians gathered together to say goodbye to one of their own. Walon had been even more silent than he normally would be. He reviewed the report on the investigation and had determined that Kratos had sacrificed himself for his brothers and had taken out a total of 60 droids before some lightsaber user had taken him out. He was both proud and saddened by the loss of his unruly adopted son. Kal took it hard, he had loved the boy like he loved all his boys. He was also proud that the boy had gone out like a true Mandalorian. Rav and Vhonte were saddened by the kid's loss; he had been one of the few who really took to their culture.
As the group sat around waiting for 99 to come in for their small send off they heard the room doors open and were surprised to see 99 leading a group of troopers to the send off. The fact that he led a small group in did not surprise them but that the aged clone stood tall with head held high is what surprised them. He was no longer hunched over and wore a unique sort of exoskeleton that helped him. The gathering was a joyful and sad affair but nothing surprised the Mandalorians more than the file that they had received from 99. The file held a book titled The Art of War. as they skimmed the book they realized just how dangerous the contents would be if they were to get into the wrong hands. They all made a vow that they would only pass on the information the book held to their most trusted allies and clan members. With this new book they would become even better warriors for generations to come.
---
99 would not know that the actions he took on the day of William's wake would affect the future of not just his clone brothers but of the galaxy as a whole in the future. William had been secretly hacking into the Kaminoans systems for years and had been slowly changing the coding on the inhibitor chips in pieces. The final piece was to be released when he finally found a way home or upon his death. When 99 downloaded the stories onto the database the final pieces would assemble themselves and would rewrite order 66 and change it to a new order when in the field. It would basically be an order to hunt down all Sith and prepare for war with the Yuuzhan Vong.
---
Palpitine had felt a minor disturbance in the force but had quickly ignored it as he made his way to his Wayland base. He had found the planet and set up a secret base where he would be able to store his various sith artifacts and set up his private cloning facility. He had captured some Spaarti cloning tanks and was fascinated by the technology. The research notes left behind by his master were going to be the secret to his eventual immortality. His master had not had the chance to complete the research but he would. Sidious cackled in glee as he admired the progress on his master plan to not only destroy the Jedi, to create his empire but to also become an immortal emperor. He felt the force lash out at his plans which only made Sidious cackle harder because he knew that the force was frightened by his plans.
"Such delicious pain and agony shall be felt by the new test subjects and soon the rest of the galaxy."
